Hello fam! Welcome back! Ya’ll remember where we left off in our last episode of Pop Stars 2.0– or VikNik and Astronomer Yuuri, a love story under the stars? Yes, I’m being intentionally cheesy. Okay, so if you have not yet caught up on Episode 3, go overhere(which will also take you to part I and II).
And now, our feature presentation.
Part IV, or Episode 4, or Viktor is a Princess
Yuuri is going to have a heart-attack with this whole
Viktor Nikiforov business. Apparently, Yuuri is going to the AMAs with Viktor Nikiforov,
alias the King of Pop, because 1) Viktor asked him (and had already invested in
an expensive Italian suit for Yuuri,
so he feels compelled to go,) and 2) Viktor is not his student (at least according to Viktor’s new schedule, which
has a lot of very diverse classes). The last one is a relief because Viktor’s
new haircut makes him look like a legitimate sex god (and Yuuri may have
already thought the same) in a poncho—and Yuuri is worried about what might
happen when Viktor puts something more form-fitting.
“I’m so happy you said yes!” Viktor squeals, bringing
out his phone to type with one hand while he uses the other to hold his
smoothie. It’s just a little creepy that he doesn’t even have to look at the
screen. “I suppose there really could only be one tragedy per 24 hours,” he
sighs, looking resigned about his hair (again).
“Right,” Yuuri nods. “Well, uh, was there anything else
you needed? You have a class in another building starting soon, so you might
want to—”
“Walk me there?” Viktor asks, pout evident on his
lips.
“I don’t know that—”
Yuuri can’t bring himself to deny Viktor, who brings
out a little tub of Chanel lip balm to dab it over his lips. He shakes his head
to regain his thoughts and his students’ homework assignments.
“—I have the time. Sorry.”
“But what if I get lost?” Viktor tries harder, fanning
his eyelashes so hard that Yuuri worries he has something stuck in his eye.
“Well, you have bodyguards with you, don’t you?” Yuuri
offers with a smile. “We can, uh, grab coffee later. If you want.” – Because Yuuri
wants and it’s obvious Viktor wants,
and Phichit told him he’s not allowed to come home until he properly asks
Viktor out on a date. (“Do it for every Middle and High School kid that once
wore kneepads to school to be more like Viktor Nikiforov!”)
Viktor looks uneasy, “Uh.”
“You do have
your bodyguards with you, right?” Yuuri blanches, concerned by the sudden
silence that has overcome Viktor.
Viktor whines, “I couldn’t let anyone see me like this!”
“Like you’re about to pose for the cover of Vogue?”
Yuuri snaps. “Oh my god, Viktor!”
“You think I look good enough to be on Vogue?” Viktor
blushes, trying to jump over the desk to reach him. He jumps, sending his
rolling chair sliding back. “Yuuri!”
“I’m serious. You came to school on your own?”
“No, of course not, my chauffeur brought me,” Viktor
says dismissively, “but he can’t exactly take me to my next class. So can you
take me, please?”
And what’s the harm, right? So, Yuuri says yes.
.
Mobs.
Mobs of students looking for a social media post
opportunity with Viktor Nikiforov, who is now magically sporting a new haircut.
That’s reason #1 why Yuuri should never offer
to walk Viktor Nikiforov to a musical theater class ever again.
“Viktor, you’re going to need to run, or at least walk
a little bit faster!” Yuuri snaps at him, trying to drag him to a detour in
hopes that they can reach a security post, or at least another empty-looking building,
and get some help. He should’ve known the relative calm of the previous day was
only going to last for as long as the entire student body didn’t know that
Viktor was enrolled. That was now out of the question.
“Run in these shoes?” Viktor gasps, looking completely
insulted for a minute. He actually has the gall to pull Yuuri back for a
minute: “Yuuri, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but these boots are practically
sown onto my legs and go all the way up mid-thigh. Unless you want me to twist
an ankle and fall and die of embarrassment,
you don’t want to see me running in these heels.”
.
That’s not actually true.
Viktor could
run in his expensive thigh-high boots (and dance and even do the splits in them),
but he’s never had to and he’s not starting now when he’s having so much more
fun letting Yuuri hold his hand and pull him away from a crowd of excited
students just trying to get a little selfie. Viktor would stop, but Yuuri looks
so cute concerned about him, what with the little furrow of his brows and his squared
jaw. He could actually swoon a little, but instead he sips on his smoothie and
keeps taking these leap-like jumps to keep up with Yuuri.
“Okay, this is ridiculous,” Yuuri huffs, stopping only
for a second. Viktor watches in confusion as Yuuri begins to bend down and –
“Oh my god!”
Viktor clasps his hands together, not even bothering with the left-behind
smoothie tumbler on the floor. Now, in all of his million fantasies about
Yuuri, developed in a matter of days, the idea that Yuuri could actually princess
carry him was not in any of them. This, though, is a gamechanger, and Viktor is going to have to revisit every single
one of his wet dreams to add a little tidbit in each one that includes in giant
red letters YUURI KATSUKI CAN BENCHPRESS ME. And who would’ve thought that behind
Yuuri’s slim figure are the arms of a champion. “Yuuri,” Viktor says, completely
breathless.
Look, Viktor has always had fantasies about falling in
love with a lonely, bad boy bodyguard and being princess carried from a Grammys
stage – but he blames Hollywood for that, okay? Even legendary pop stars can
have warped perceptions of romance thanks to Hollywood. But this is so real; Viktor wants to cry and cheer
and fuck Yuuri—not in that order, exactly,
or maybe in that order? Definitely no tears after sex (that only happened to
him once).
Yuuri looks at him, soft eyes pure caramel behind his glasses:
“Uh, is this okay?”
“Yes!” Viktor nods, still gasping for air. “B—but are
you okay? I’m not really in shape right now so—”
“Viktor, you’re fine. You’re beautiful,” Yuuri tells
him, almost tripping up the stairs into a building.
And, sure, if Yuuri had fallen and dropped him then,
he would’ve bruised something, but he’s still trapped in Yuuri telling him he’s
beautiful. It’s everything. Yuuri is
everything.
But Viktor already knew that.
.
“And then,”
Viktor sighs for the millionth time as he paces his bedroom, “he just picked me
up and kept running with me in his arms, Chris. He put his very life on the line
to get me to safety. And then he almost tripped trying to get us up the front
stairs of the next building, but he was still so heroic and we kissed in front
of a fountain. Or, actually, I accidentally kissed his nose and he sneezed! But
not everyone can be Whitney Houston in the Bodyguard.”
“You have got to let go of that movie,” Chris says
pointedly. “Anyway, I’m glad things are working out with your boy toy. But tell
me, how was math class?”
“Math class?” Viktor blinks, inching down to give
Makkachin noses kisses. “What class?”
“What he was walking you to…?” Chris tries again.
“Oh, that,”
Viktor repeats, like that’s going to make anything more sense. It all makes
more sense to him, at least. “So, I decided to go to musical theater class
instead.”
“Musical theater—did you change your schedule again?”
Again
is a little unfair. It’s true, but it’s also making it sound like Viktor changed
his schedule ten times when he only changed it eight.
“Viktor! I thought we decided you were going to take
Calculus!”
And, yes, they discussed Calculus, but when was Viktor
going to actually use it?
Viktor pouts, “But singing! And costumes! Musical
theater was so much more fun! And the professor asked for my autograph.” He adds
with a singing voice, “I think I’m going to get an A.”
“That, that is exactly why we said you weren’t doing musical theater! Because you can get
an easy A,” Chris groans. Viktor can hear him dropping something in the
background. It clatters. “Viktor, you have an amazing brain. Just use it. Don’t
you want to impress Yuuri?”
Vikor always wants to impress Yuuri. That is the whole
point of staying in college.
“But I already accepted to do lyrics for my group.”
“Viktor, I have to go. Alex is home and – Alex, where have you been? Don’t you see I’ve
been stirring this pot for the past half hour? I tell you, you try to make
a house a home. Anyway, I made us dinner, so I need to go finish preparing.”
“Oh, oh, right,” Viktor clears his throat. Ever since
Chris got himself a boyfriend, it’s been different. “Same here. I have to go,
uh, drink my other smoothie of the day.”
He’s not even sure he has another smoothie in the
fridge.
.
Phichit can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“Hold up, so, you’re going to the AMAs and you princess carried Viktor
Nikiforov today?” Phichit laughs.
Yuuri huffs, waving a wooden spoon around by the oven,
“And when we got to his class, he broke out into song: Better late than never, he sang. And Minako actually gave him a
standing ovation.”
“Oh my god, that’s amazing!”
“Did you miss the part where he kissed my nose? He almost
ate my nose!”
Phichit snorts, “Okay, but did you like it?”
There’s a long, stretched out silence before Yuuri squeaks,
“Yes.”
wabi sabi 