LPPC #3 - Funny Girl, by Laura Rizzotto
Requested by @omgkatsudonplease, and lengthened with permission
“Ain’t it funny, ain’t it funny I made you laugh every time we spoke I locked my heart in hesitation But somehow, you cracked the code I tore down my walls And wrecked the ceiling Ready to bare it all, but
You’re looking at her, she’s looking at you I’m falling apart, what can I do To make you feel that way about me too?
And it’s getting hard, I’m not gonna lie To keep in the dark all I’m feeling inside When you walk in smelling like her perfume What was I thinking? I’m just the funny girl to you”
(YouTube) (Spotify)
“Good morning, Yuuri!”
It’s always said that way, with such carefree joy, the cadence of someone with no weight on his shoulders. You can almost imagine the words displayed on the bottom of a fuzzy CRT television, with a little bouncing red ball hovering over each syllable as it leaves his lips: Good morning, Yuuri!
And it is a good morning, every single time, because those words always precede the appearance of Victor’s silvery hair as he comes up the steps; his eyes come next, arrestingly blue and framed by stunning lashes, then his lips—and this is the point where Yuuri always forces his eyes away, because he’s staring again.
“Good morning, Victor,” he replies demurely, as he always does.
He drags his eyes back now, forcing himself to make eye contact, even though it breaks his heart every single time. His mouth opens automatically, programmed by hopeless desire, and Yuuri puts on a sly smile by sheer muscle memory alone as he asks the question he asks every single morning:
“Victor, will you marry me?”
Victor’s eyes light up, and his practiced smile cracks open slightly to reveal something wider—something truer.
“Alas, dearest Yuuri,” he sighs, with just the right blend of dramatics and emotion so that Yuuri can pretend, just for a second, that he’s serious, “I’m afraid that today I must decline. Ask me again tomorrow?”
Yuuri nods, his cheeks aching from holding his smile, and as Victor turns to head into his office the sunlight glints off the gold engagement ring on his finger.
Alone at last, Yuuri slumps into his chair, cradling his head in his hands.
I can’t keep doing this, he says to himself, just as he does every day. He used to keep count, but it became too depressing, as every day Yuuri asks Victor to marry him and every day Victor says no in the kindest way possible, the sting of rejection renewed over and over again in the worst sort of time loop imaginable.
Worse still, it’s a prison of his own making. Last Christmas, Yuuri drank sixteen glasses of champagne, and in a fit of liquid courage he had sauntered up to his goddamn boss who he’d been in love with for forever and had asked, loudly: Victor-will-you-marry-me. And when Victor had stopped—when the whole ballroom had stopped, it felt like—Yuuri had burst out laughing, because that’s what you do when your spontaneous declaration of love is met with a less than enthusiastic response.
Yuuri had assumed he was fired, but Victor had laughed too, and the next day he came up the steps of the office as usual and had stood in front of Yuuri’s desk.
“Do you need something?” Yuuri had asked, swallowing a wave of hangover nausea.
“Yeah,” Victor had replied softly. “I need you to ask me to marry you again.”
“I—what?”
Victor had smiled—a smaller smile, a shy one—and fiddled with the ring on his finger. “I liked it,” he confessed, and Yuuri swore he saw the hint of a blush creep across Victor’s cheeks. “It’s a very sweet joke. You should joke more often, Yuuri.”
And now here they are. And every morning, before he gets coffee or delivers the mail or collects paperwork, Yuuri Katsuki asks the man he loves to marry him, and every day he hears no. Every day Yuuri overhears Victor arguing with his fiance about wedding plans; every day he tries not to eavesdrop as Victor’s whole love life plays out behind the frosted glass door, the sounds of strife bleeding out from the gap under the door.
Victor, will you marry me?
Yuuri sighs.
He should tell jokes more often. It’s just a shame that they’re always at his expense.
(Lyric Post Prompt Challenge Masterpost) (my ko-fi)
