HELLO SERI!!!! 'the opposite of loneliness' for the fic title meme :)
[Send me a made-up fic title, and I’ll tell you about the story I’d write to go with it!]
“So,” says Yuuri, after he’s nursed his coffee for about twenty minutes and the silver-haired man has just continued to stare at him, “Georgi. Why did you enter the program?”
“The program,” Viktor repeats, with a significant pause. “Oh. Yes. I entered The Opposite of Loneliness program because the most significant relationship I have is with my dog.”
Yuuri doesn’t laugh, just squints at him through his blue frames. Viktor’s not sure what to do with that. He hadn’t really meant to say it. He hadn’t realized it was the truth until it came out of his mouth. “But you’re so beautiful. And talented.”
So are you, Viktor wants to say. And you’re still in this program. Just like Viktor isn’t. In fact, his exact instructions from Georgi had been “please tell my date I’ve decided to marry the first person I met through the program, so I won’t be meeting with him.” Instead, Viktor had sat down across from Yuuri and somehow said, hello, I’m your date for the evening.
“My roommate made me join. I’m surprised someone hasn’t snatched you up already,” Yuuri continues, and flushes. “How many, um, dates have you been on in the program? How many do you have scheduled, after this?”
Viktor blinks. He has no idea. What’s a reasonable number? What are numbers? What are words, when he’s staring into the depths of mesmerizing chocolate eyes? “Ah. Forty?” At Yuuri’s visible wilt, Viktor rushes to ask, “what about you?”
“O-oh.” Yuuri screws his eyes shut. “A few. They went, well, badly? I’m sorry, I don’t want to bore you with it. In fact, I don’t want to waste your time, and I don’t think we’re on the same level, so you can go on your forty other dates and I’ll just--”
“WHY DON’T YOU COME WITH ME.”
Somehow, Yuuri doesn’t take this or the following explanation in quite the right way. This is how Viktor Nikiforov both digs his own grave and buries himself in it.
“Hello,” he says to a sour-looking Italian three days later, “I’m Vi--Georgi. Thank you for... agreeing to double-date.” Yuuri’s leg is gently brushing against his beneath the table. It almost makes the scoff the Italian makes worth it.
“My sister insisted I join this ridiculous matchmaking program, but all I need is her! Emil here wants a wingman.”
“Definitely,” says Emil, but he is grinning with ease right in Michele’s direction, and this is why Viktor feels no shame in sneaking a palm onto Yuuri’s thigh.
“Ah!” Yuuri yelps, and up goes his knee, and crack go Viktor’s knuckles against the bottom of the table.
40 dates. Viktor can do this. His body is going to suffer, but he can do this.
