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“Who’s that?” Christine asked, her eyes following the gorgeous guy as he walked through the campus.
“Hm?” Lizzy tore her gaze away from her phone. “Oh, you mean Viktor? He’s a student here. Faculty of Sports, I think. Not quite sure.”
A student? That meant he was going to be around. Good.
“Is he single?”
“Dunno,” her friend shrugged, disinterested. “Rumours have it that he’s been making eyes at the Japanese language teacher. No guarantee it’s true, though.”
Japanese language teacher, huh? Christine remembered her. Professor... Ayame Kozuki or something, right? Okay, she was kinda pretty, in a nerdy sort of way. Or she would be if she ever bothered showing a bit of skin, letting her hair down and putting on some decent make-up. (And high heels. You can’t go wrong with high heels.) As it was, Christine wasn’t worried; she was younger and prettier than Professor Whatshername, and if Viktor liked them nerdy—well, Christine could pull off sexy nerd like a pro. She smirked to herself. Viktor won’t know what hit him.
Obtaining more information about the object of her interest was a matter of batting her eyelashes at the right people. Three days later she held a copy of Viktor K.-Nikiforov’s class schedule. He was a freshman studying coaching at the Faculty of Sports. Unfortunately, the only thing he and Christine had even remotely in common was French—but while Christine was struggling with French for beginners, Viktor was apparently fluent enough for advanced conversation classes. Which was not entirely a bad thing. Maybe she could ask him about tutoring? Mhm, private lessons in the language of love—she liked the idea. Also, Viktor didn’t have any Japanese in his schedule, which meant that his alleged crush on the Japanese teacher might not be serious after all.
But that was about it for the good news. None of Viktor’s classes were anywhere near Christine’s building. And she didn’t have any friends at the Faculty of Sports which she could visit in order to accidentally bump into him. She didn’t want to wait for a chance meeting—too unpredictable. She needed a plan.
“It’s so frustrating,” she complained to her best friend. “I tried stalking his social media but either he has everything set to private or he’s using a different name. Looks like I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. But I don’t even know where to begin! I mean, Valentine’s Day would be a good last resort, but I don’t want to wait that long!”
“Dorms?” Jenny suggested.
Yeah, dorms would normally be a good place to start, she had a point. Unfortunately, it was not applicable in this case.
“Trust me, someone who dresses like he just came from a photoshoot with Alain Delon is not staying at the dorms.” Christine was willing to bet her Miss Michigan tiara on that.
Jenny hmm’d and took a sip of her coffee. “You said he was a coach, right? What sport?”
The question gave Christine pause. She had no idea.
Jenny raised her eyebrow sceptically. “How can you not know? You have his schedule!”
“Yeah, there’s a ton of theory, some biology, psychology and stuff, and chunks of time dedicated to ‘practical application’, whatever that means. Nowhere in the schedule does it say what sport is he in.”
“Okay, well, in that case my advice for you is to go and find out. Then you can start randomly popping up at his practice and claim you have always been a fan of tennis, hockey, football or whatever it is he’s coaching. Just don’t forget to do some basic research before you actually say that.”
Christine brightened up and smiled at her best friend gratefully. “You’re brilliant, you know that?”
“Yes, but I do like hearing it, so feel free to remind me more often,” Jenny said with a teasing smile, adjusting her glasses—which drew her attention to Christine’s. “What’s with the glasses, by the way?”
“Oh, I’ve heard from two independent sources that Viktor has been admiring Professor Katsooki—which I’m fairly certain is actually pronounced Kozuki—from afar. And she’s the nerdy type, so...”
Jenny rolled her eyes at Christine fondly.
In the end, a perfect opportunity presented itself much sooner than she had hoped. (She hadn't found out what sport he coached but she figured she would just ask him in person.) The school decided it needed a boost in popularity, so the photography club had been taking snapshots of random unaware students for the past week. Now all students were asked to vote for Mister and Miss Photogenic who would become the face of the new promo campaign. Objectively speaking, with her photo and Viktor’s photo among the candidates, it was practically a foregone conclusion who would win. Now, what should she wear for the shoot?
Yuri wasn’t particularly fond of photoshoots, so when they asked him to be a part of the (carefully selected, racially-diverse) group of extras for the school promo campaign, he was going to tell them where to stuff it. An unpaid photoshoot with him as a random background character for Viktor? Not happening. But then they said he would get an excused absence from whatever class he was supposed to be attending, which happened to be Professor Cameron’s (AKA Bakameron’s) class—and yeah, there was very little Yuri wouldn’t do to escape that hell. (The guy was a freakin’ Dementor or something – sucking out anything remotely interesting from the syllabus and leaving students to stew in highly concentrated boredom. And his annoying voice made it impossible to just sleep through the torture. Yuri skipped his classes whenever he could but he was running out of excuses.)
So here he was, standing in the library next to the newly elected Mister Photogenic, still bored – but at least he didn’t have to listen to Bakameron, which counted as a win in his book. Even if it meant he got to watch Miss Photogenic undressing the totally oblivious Viktor with her eyes. (For someone who liked to tease his husband about not noticing people flirting with him, Viktor could be just as bad. The two idiots really deserved each other.)
“Alright, guys, please grab a book from this table here and take a seat,” the photographer said cheerfully, reminding Yuri of Phichit. “Pretend you’re in a study group. Feel free to talk; I booked this room for the next fifteen minutes, so we won’t be disturbing anyone.”
Taking a book Yuri slumped in his chair, wondering if he could get away with playing Farm Heroes under the table. He didn’t know anyone in the group except Viktor, whose attention was being hoarded by the prima donna, so he had no one to talk to.
“By the way, Viktor,” Miss Photogenic said, ‘absentmindedly’ playing with her necklace (totally not drawing attention to her cleavage, no sir), “you’re a coach, right? What sport?”
“Figure skating.”
“Oh, I love figure skating!”
Yuri quickly grabbed the Inorganic Chemistry from the table to hide his face. There was nothing he could do about his shoulders shaking as he laughed, but thankfully nobody seemed to notice. The prima donna loved figure skating – of course she did. That’s why she had to ask Viktor Fuckin’ Katsuki-Nikiforov, the most decorated figure skater in history (at least until Yuri stole that title from him), what sport he coached. Never mind the fact that the ruling world champion in men’s singles was sitting two seats away from her and she didn’t bat an eyelid.
“Really?” Viktor seemed to be buying it, like the idiot he was.
“Yes! I’ve always wanted to try it. Do you think you could teach me?”
Forget playing Farm Heroes, this was turning out to be JJ 2.0 levels of fun.
“Sure!” Viktor said brightly, getting her hopes up. “Beginner classes for adults are every Wednesday from six until eight. The next course starts in two weeks, I think. Better check the website of Detroit Ice Castle, just to be sure.”
Lowering his book a fraction Yuri peeked at the prima donna and quickly hid his face again, biting his lip to keep himself from bursting out.
“You okay, man?” the guy sitting next to him asked in a whisper, not understanding why Yuri was shaking. Not that Yuri didn’t appreciate his concern but he was distracting Yuri from his fun.
“Fine,” he whispered back.
“You know,” the prima donna was saying patiently, “I was thinking more along the lines of private lessons.”
Yeah, Yuri would bet her idea of private lessons included very little actual skating.
“Oh. Sorry, I only give one-on-one lessons to competing skaters and you’re far too old for that.”
Did he just—? Yuri almost dropped the book as he took in the prima donna’s incredulous/offended expression. He did. Yuri had to bite his lip and take a few deep breaths to fight the hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up his throat. How in the ever-loving world did this man, with his social grace of a rhino, secure a single sponsorship deal? (Okay, that comparison was totally unfair to rhinos. As for how, the answer was probably Yakov.)
Viktor had enough awareness to understand something was wrong with Miss Photogenic’s reaction but he was hopelessly clueless as to why. “What did I do?” he asked Yuri in Russian when he noticed his stare.
“She’s barely twenty and you called her old to her face, moron.”
“That’s not what I meant! I only wanted to point out—”
“Why are you telling me? I know what you meant.”
Taking the hint (for once in his life) Viktor turned to the prima donna and switched to English. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to imply that you’re old! It’s just that most figure skaters start competing professionally at the age of thirteen.”
This seemed to appease her a little. Luckily, further conversation was interrupted by the photographer, who started giving them instructions on how they should pose.
Viktor was... not what she had expected. For a man so beautiful he was also fun, kind, a bit of an airhead, surprisingly humble—and shockingly, unpleasantly blunt. Also, a perfect gentleman whose eyes never strayed below her neck. That, or totally gay, because when Christine wore that shirt, every straight and bisexual man in a five-mile radius checked out her cleavage at least once. Hell, she even caught several straight women staring, be it in jealousy or in admiration. Not Viktor, though.
After the library the photoshoot continued outside. They had a mock picnic under the trees and played with a frisbee for a while. Eventually Mike the photographer asked Mister and Miss Photogenic to pose together in front of the main building.
Viktor stood next to her and smiled for the camera. Christine could tell it was a practiced, professional smile. Being a model herself, she knew it well.
“Ah, Viktor, could you put your arm around Christine?” Mike asked.
She expected him to wrap his arm around her waist, and maybe let his hand slip a little bit lower, but Viktor did no such thing. He put his hand on her shoulder, as if she was his buddy or something. She felt almost offended.
“Alright, guys, think of something beautiful, okay?” He snapped a photo. Christine saw several onlookers swoon or clutch at their hearts. Even Mike blinked and checked the photo on the camera with a quiet wow. “Fantastic! That was perfect. What were you thinking about, Viktor?”
“My husband,” Viktor answered with a dreamy smile. His what!? “You see, my Yuuri may not be a morning person but he’s just so beautiful when he stumbles out of the bedroom with mussed-up bed hair and sleepy eyes, grumbling about having to wake up unfairly early. Besides, sleepy Yuuri is very cuddly. This morning he fell back asleep standing right there in my arms with his head on my shoulder. I honestly thought my heart would burst.”
Christine could practically see the audience melting, which did nothing to calm her blood pressure.
Mike sighed dreamily. “You must really love him.”
“I do!” Viktor agreed emphatically. “He’s just so perfect!”
Urgh, that’s it! Christine had enough. “Does this perfect husband of yours know that you’ve been ogling the Japanese language teacher?” she spat out venomously.
Viktor titled his head in genuine confusion. “What do you mean? My Yuuri is the new Japanese language teacher.”
Christine found herself rendered speechless. She turned on her heel and made a dignified exit, uncaring how childish such action may seem. She dimly heard Viktor asking what he had done. The man was such an idiot!
“Uhm, solnyshko?”
“Hello, darling! Hi, Yura,” Katsudon smiled at them brightly from the reception desk of Detroit Ice Castle. “You're early. How was the photoshoot?”
“It went well but I think I might have upset Miss Photogenic? I have no idea why,” Viktor admitted.
Because he was the smarter of the pair, Katsudon looked at Yuri questioningly.
Yuri grinned, feeling his cheeks hurt from all the laughter. “She was showing her boobs into his face the whole time, and not only he didn't look and didn't flirt back, but he openly called her far too old and when the photographer said to think of something beautiful, he started mooning over you. Of course she was ‘upset’,” he made air quotes around the word and rolled his eyes. “Great sign, by the way. I approve.”
The sign in question was propped up not-so-inconspicuously on the reception desk. It read
THE ‘HANDSOME RUSSIAN’ (we have two) IS EITHER:
- TOO MARRIED AND BUSY COACHING THE WORLD
CHAMPION TO TEACH INDIVIDUAL CLASSES
OR
- TOO BUSY TRAINING AND NOT INTERESTED
Katsudon might be blind and deaf to people flirting with him but when it came to people flirting with Viktor—let’s just say Viktor wasn't the only possessive husband in this relationship. The two idiots really were perfect for each other.