Chapter Text
It was raining that morning. This time of year it always seemed to be raining, or about to rain. The dampness seemed ingrained into the very foundation of this city. Coming from a subtropical climate where the rain held off most of the year in favor of a single deluge season made the transition to persistent drizzling quite an adjustment, but Yuuri managed to take it all in stride. His job kept him busy enough not to pay too much attention to what was going on outside his window most of the time.
A client meeting had brought him out to an entirely new area of town, causing him to take stock of his surroundings more than he normally would. The meeting was blessedly short and straightforward. Honestly, it could have been an email but he wasn't complaining. At least it got him out of the office for a little while. He wasn't in too much of a hurry to get back there and face the usual daily drudgery. His boss wouldn't begrudge him a few stolen minutes for refreshment, he reasoned as he ducked into a nearby coffee shop.
The interior was cheerful and understated, exactly what was needed on a gloomy Autumn day. He secured his matcha latte and a muffin from the almost predatorily smiling barista and settled himself at a small table, enjoying the weekday indulgence he so rarely allowed himself. After a few minutes, the bell on the cafe's front door jingled, alerting everyone inside to a new customer. Mildly curious, Yuuri looked up from his muffin and nearly choked.
Walking in was probably the most beautiful man he'd ever seen in his entire twenty-five years of life. Beautiful, but with an air of extreme fragility, as if a strong wind might blow him completely away. The man, who looked around twenty or so, wore a patched blue coat that was too large for his thin frame, completely soaked through with rainwater. Stray strands of long silver hair peeked out from under an oversized wool beanie perched atop his head. On his back sat a worn backpack that looked like it had its own share of stories to tell of what it had seen and heard in its obviously long life.
The man's weather-beaten shoes squeaked slightly as he walked toward the counter cautiously, cerulean eyes intent on the smiling barista before him.
"Hello, Viktor," the blond man behind the counter purred, punctuating the words with a wink and suggestive lean forward. "The usual today?"
The customer, Viktor, Yuuri assumed, merely nodded, offering only a tiny curve of his pink lips in response. The barista, marginally deflated by the lack of response to his flirting, nodded and poured him a coffee, placing the cup and a large container of sugar before him. Viktor at once began pouring an unsettling amount of sugar into the cup while the barista busied himself with another order. Clearly this was part of a routine the two had developed over time and many visits. When the silver man was finished, he took his sugary concoction to a table by the large picture window at the front of the store, placing the battered backpack next to his chair before sitting down and gazing intently at the soggy outside world. Yuuri noted to himself that through all of that, he'd seen no money exchanged. Curious.
A few minutes passed of Viktor carefully sipping his drink while Yuuri watched him, for whatever reason unable to tear himself away and go about his business. Then, abruptly, the silver head turned from the window as if he had suddenly decided something, putting down his mug and reaching for his bag. Extracting a large item wrapped in plastic to protect it from the unpleasant dampness outside, he placed it on the table before him and began carefully removing its protective covering. The unveiled item turned out to be a sketchbook, thick and obviously well-loved. Viktor opened it to an empty page, his long fingers grazing the ivory blankness before taking up a pencil and beginning to attack it with a single-minded fervor. Yuuri found that he couldn't stop staring as the page became enveloped in a curtain of burnished silver hair, thoroughly enchanted by this young man in an oversized coat and threadbare fingerless gloves, losing himself in his art.
After what could have been mere minutes or hours, Yuuri would never be able to tell, Viktor looked up from his work. As if sensing he was being watched, he turned his head, leveling the full intensity of his blue-eyed stare straight at Yuuri. Yuuri froze, caught by those eyes and unable to turn his eyes toward any other direction, even for propriety's sake. Frozen in place, he was able to watch in horror as the man's face went from surprise to a nearly blank mask, as blank as the page before him had once been, though he could see a hint of a fear that Viktor was obviously trying to hide flickering in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, I-" Yuuri began to explain, his voice rising in pitch as he flailed desperately for the right words. Not for the first time, he cursed himself for his awkwardness.
But Yuuri's words were lost as Viktor abruptly closed his sketchbook, grabbed his bag and nearly sprinted out of the cafe into the rain. Within seconds, he'd completely disappeared, leaving Yuuri sitting there, open-mouthed in shock.
The barista sighed as he approached the now empty table. "Don't worry about it, cher. It's not you. Viktor just does that sometimes. He's a bit on the, ah…skittish side, I suppose you could say," he explained to Yuuri as he wiped the table and collected the discarded mug. The words did nothing to make Yuuri feel better. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"You know him pretty well, then?" Yuuri asked, trying to take the barista's advice and distract himself from the guilt pooling in his gut.
The man shrugged as he straightened to look out the window at the rain in the direction where Viktor had retreated a moment before. "He comes here several days a week. Always orders the same thing, always keeps to himself with his sketchbook. Just sits there and draws for hours each time. Doesn't seem to like being observed or talked to. I've tried before and he bolted when I asked him questions, just like he did now. A shame, really. He's quite the attractive man. Alas, he seems immune to my charms." The man pouted a little and waved a hand wistfully at the air, probably to dispel his thirsty thoughts, before returning his attention to Yuuri. "Anyway, that's about all I know. That and there's an old guy who comes in and pays his tab once a month. That's it."
"That seems a bit…odd. I wonder what his story is," Yuuri mused, more to himself than the blond barista a few feet away.
"Don't know. He's been coming here about a year, but I haven't learned anymore about him than his coffee order," the man replied. "If you ever find out, please share with the rest of the class, oui? I'm Chris, by the way." With a sultry wink, he moved back behind the counter to help a new customer, leaving Yuuri alone with his thoughts.
Yuuri leaned back in his chair, sipping his now cold latte with a grimace as he thought about the stunning, potentially very complicated man he couldn't seem to get out of his mind.
Over the following days, Yuuri's mind kept wandering back to that little cafe, and that stunning man who had entirely captured his attention with not even a single word exchanged. He tried to parse out why that was, as he'd never really paid much attention to anyone in quite this way before. Viktor was a complete stranger, and strangers were people that Yuuri typically avoided like the plague. It was why he had only one friend, if he could still call him that after not seeing him in more than a year. Scant text messages weren't exactly grounds for much of a relationship. He tried to tell himself he'd just been busy at work and settling into his new city, but in reality he knew it was simple: he was a terrible friend. If there was anything he was worse at, it was the role of lover. He didn't even want to venture into the disastrous territory of his non-existent love life. He hadn't been on a date since college, and that was a blind date of the ilk that people remembered years later with a shudder. He'd long since sworn off that brand of masochism, resigning himself to a lifetime of loneliness.
Which was all the more reason why his inability to forget a two-second encounter with someone he'd barely even talked to and who would prefer to run away rather than respond was so unlike him.
One early evening after work, without much else to do and feeling too restless to return to the sparse four walls of his apartment, he decided to take a walk along the city streets without any particular destination. He wasn't entirely surprised when his feet led him back to a familiar cafe, its friendly yellow flowers in the front planters a striking contrast to the ever-present grayness of the Autumn landscape. As his eyes traveled up from the planters, his breath caught in his chest. Seated at the window was an equally familiar figure, the same curtain of silver hair bent over a sketchbook and scribbling furiously. Yuuri watched those long, dexterous fingers move across the page in front of him, clad again in those same threadbare fingerless gloves. Viktor was once again enchanting, completely oblivious to the world that went on around him and all the more alluring because of it.
Before his brain caught up with his body he was walking into the cafe, making a straight line to Viktor's table and stopping next to it, a mere foot away from the seated artist. Viktor's hand ceased mid-line and the curtain of hair parted as he looked up and took in Yuuri before him, the same wide-eyed look of surprise as days before on his face. Those captivating blue eyes blinked once, as if trying to decide best how to respond to this new intrusion. Yuuri watched, heart in his throat, as those eyes flicked to the door and back to him.
"Please," he pleaded in a voice barely above a whisper. Later, he would wonder where the completely alien feeling of confidence came from that caused him to speak so earnestly. "Please don't leave. I…" the words seized in his throat, unable to continue. He stared ahead helplessly, waiting to see if his pleas would be successful or not.
The man looked back, bottom lip disappearing into his mouth as he bit it, seeming to consider what to do. For whatever reason but one Yuuri would be eternally grateful for, Viktor nodded slowly, carefully, as if agreeing not to run away this time, at least not yet. Yuuri released the breath he was holding in a relieved sigh.
"May I join you?" he asked, not knowing why he was pressing when he'd never shown any form of assertiveness or proactivity in any previous human interactions. There was just something about Viktor that inspired him to try for the first time.
Viktor blinked, looking startled all over again. He tilted his head, appearing to seriously consider the proposal from all possible angles while seeming to stare straight into Yuuri's soul with eyes so blue they could hardly be human. The moments ticked by agonizingly slowly, and Yuuri tried not to fidget until the scrutiny. Finally, Viktor opened his mouth and spoke the first word Yuuri had yet been privileged to hear him say. It was quiet, tenuous, and in a voice that seemed a bit hoarse perhaps from lack of use, but to Yuuri it was pure music.
"Alright."
Yuuri could have cheered right then and there, but he kept his jubilation in check, opting to carefully take the seat opposite Viktor.
"I'm Yuuri," he offered lamely as he sat, but received no response. The persistent silence caused him to squirm in his chair while Viktor watched him carefully, all boldness having left him as quickly as it had manifested itself just a moment ago. He gave in to the urge to fidget, looking at Viktor as if hoping for a lifeline. In the corner of his eye he could see the blond barista gaping in shock at the sudden development with his most elusive customer, leaning forward so far over the counter he risked toppling onto the other side.
Instead of providing the lifeline Yuuri sought, Viktor tilted his head again, considering him even more intently, as if peering directly into Yuuri's inner essence. After about a minute, his blue eyes appeared to light up and he seized his pencil, turning to a new page in his sketchbook and beginning to draw again with renewed fervor. Yuuri simply watched with wide eyes, transfixed as those long-fingered hands seemed to fly across the page. He leaned back in his chair and continued to watch as time crept by, inconsequential. Every so often, Viktor would look up from his curtain of silver hair and consider him, as if remembering Yuuri and checking to see if he was still there, but he quickly returned again to his work without a word spoken.
After a while, it seemed as if fatigue had begun to set in and Viktor straightened, dropping the pencil to the table. With what felt like a silent sigh, he turned his head to press it against the cold glass of the window and closed his eyes.
"Are you alright?" Yuuri couldn't help but ask, concern creasing his brow.
Viktor startled, as if he'd forgotten once again that he wasn't alone, and opened his weary blue eyes to consider Yuuri. He seemed to struggle with a response for a moment, words clearly something he did not use all too often to express himself.
"You're hiding your light," he rasped softly, disregarding Yuuri's question in favor of a revelation. "You shouldn't."
It was Yuuri's turn to blink with surprise. "What?" he asked. Way to go Yuuri, so intelligent, he chided himself.
Viktor made a distressed noise at not being understood, his silver eyebrows drawing together. Pointing to the center of his chest, he tried again.
"Your light. Here. You're hiding it away but I can see. I can always see. Don't let the darkness inside you snuff it out. It's too lovely to let it die."
Yuuri furrowed his own brow in confusion, distressed by his inability to comprehend the silver man's meaning. "I'm not sure I understand. I'm sorry. My light?"
Viktor redirected his attention to the window again, observing the rivulets of rainwater rushing down the glass and chasing them with his eyes. After a long moment, so long that Yuuri thought Viktor had forgotten him entirely once more, he turned back.
"In every person," he began, then squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain for a moment before reopening them to continue speaking, "In almost every person, there is darkness and there is light. Sometimes, they balance. Sometimes they don't. The light must be nurtured in order for it to grow to overtake the darkness. If it isn't, it goes out. The darkness wins. I...here. This will help."
Viktor flipped through his battered sketchbook, finally stopping at a page before turning to toward Yuuri so that he could see it better. Yuuri noticed first that the page edges were full of thick black lines. In the center sat an old woman, feeding the birds at her feet. Yuuri remembered seeing her the last time he was in the area, sitting on a bench in the park across the street from the cafe. But the depiction of her in the drawing was markedly different from the image that resided in his memory. Immediately surrounding her was a radiant glow that, even though the drawing was in pencil, Yuuri could see it shine brilliantly. Outside of that glow lay what must be the darkness Viktor had been referring to, as if ever waiting for its chance to press in and snuff out the light.
The image was, in a word, extraordinary.
"Do you understand now?" Viktor asked softly as Yuuri continued to stare reverently at the page. Finally, he tore his gaze away and turned awestruck eyes to the artist across from him.
"Is this what you draw when you come here?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
Viktor hummed in the affirmative, his long, pale fingers caressing the page. "I try to capture what I see. The darkness and the light."
"It's beautiful," Yuuri replied, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. The first genuine smile he'd given in he couldn't remember how long. Funny how only in the presence of this enigmatic man was he able to realize how few things were worth actually smiling about in his life. He shook the thought away, letting it drift on the breeze produced by the ceiling fan overhead. "Would you allow me to see more of your work?"
The fingers on the page froze, the artist raising his silver head to look steadily at Yuuri. "Why?" he asked, an edge to his voice that Yuuri couldn't quite place.
"Because I want to see what you see, when you draw," Yuuri replied simply, honestly, without guile or force.
The answer gave Viktor pause and he considered it for a long while, his gaze falling once more to the page below his stilled fingertips. At last he gave a sigh and the hand retreated.
"You may see, if that's what you want. Maybe it will help."
"Help?"
Viktor nodded. "Help your own light shine. Help it fight the darkness."
Yuuri didn't know what to say in return to such a statement. Instead, he slowly pulled the sketchbook toward himself. He saw Viktor's hands twitch, as if at any moment he would change his mind and pull the book back to the safety of his embrace. But he didn't, Yuuri noted. Yuuri didn't know why he of all people had earned a measure of trust from this elusive and skittish being before him, but he relished it and vowed to somehow be worthy of it. He hoped against hope that he didn't manage to screw it up, as he often managed to do with myriad elements of what one might refer to as basic life skills. His constant failure at things that should be so simple were the main reason why, at twenty-five years old, he was entirely unattached, isolated, and stuck in a job that leeched away a bit more of his soul every single day with no reprieve in sight.
None of this was what he'd expected when he left Japan, and the safe haven of family, behind in search of new and exciting opportunities. The endless drudgery of middle management was not what he'd had in mind when he'd arrived in this country with a head full of hopes and dreams. Where had that brightness of hope gone? He'd destroyed it along with his potential. Like he managed to destroy everything else in his inability to do anything in life but fail.
According to the enigma sitting across from him, it wasn't lost, not entirely. Just…hiding. It warmed the long cold places in his heart that someone could still see the light in him, even when he'd lost sight of it himself.
Yuuri started at the front of the sketchbook, flipping the pages carefully, revealing page after page of masterpieces, each one more breathtaking than the last. Seemingly ordinary people were rendered in the same glow he'd seen in the picture with the old woman. Yet always, the darkness played around the edges, threatening the light. The way Viktor viewed the world and the people in it was something Yuuri had never encountered before, and probably never would again. Viktor, as he'd expected all along, was entirely unique, one of a kind and every inch of him teeming with beauty.
Yuuri flipped another page and froze with an audible gasp. Instead of a delicate balance of light and dark that had permeated all the other pictures, this one was entirely rendered in the darkest of blacks. Heavy, brooding lines overtook all corners of the page, closing in on the middle. In the center of the page sat a boy, probably in his teens if the gangliness of the thin arms were any indication, cowering in a corner with his head buried in his knees. Long pale hair pooled to the floor around his figure in a messy halo. Overtop of his head a single sliver of light shone, nearly overtaken by an inky, black, shadowy hand. The hand's clawed fingers were paused, frozen in the moment just before they closed around and snuffed the light out entirely and permanently. The haunting image made Yuuri's heart ache in a way that nothing ever had before. A soft, wet plop on the table beside the book was his first indication that he was crying.
Hastily, Yuuri lifted his head from over the page and scrubbed at his eyes before they marred the terrifyingly beautiful image below. He chanced a glance at Viktor, who had returned his attention to the soggy scene outside the cafe window once more, again lost in his own world of shadow and light. Yuuri couldn't help but note how sad he looked, how lost. Something swelled in Yuuri as he regarded Viktor, something that he couldn't name but desperately wanted to reach out and hold onto.
He gently cleared his throat before speaking aloud to alert the other man to his continued presence and not startle him. After a pause, he continued on, needing to know the answer to the question burning in his throat, although he had a sinking suspicion that he already knew.
"Is this you?" he asked, as gently as he could, his hand brushing lightly against the open page below him.
Viktor turned, blue eyes flickering between Yuuri's face and the drawing. He stilled, considering whether to dignify the question with any answer at all, before he offered a small nod.
"That was the day I lost my light," he responded in a detached voice, as if he was discussing the rain and not some obviously traumatic event.
Yuuri sucked in a ragged breath. "What do you mean, lost it?"
Viktor looked back at him with an expression so full of anguish that it broke Yuuri's glass heart into a thousand pieces. "That was the day the darkness won."
Before Yuuri could respond, Viktor snatched up the sketchbook and stuffed it into his bag. In a second fluid motion he was out of his seat and heading toward the door.
"Viktor, wait!" Yuuri called, but it was no use. Viktor opened the door and quickly disappeared, dodging the raindrops as he faded from view.
Yuuri slammed his fist on the table in frustration, chastising himself for scaring the beautiful man off once again. He'd just had to open his big mouth, ask too many questions. Chalk up yet another failure for his entirely too-long list. He sat there in miserable silence for several minutes before pulling himself up to standing and turning to the door. The barista called out to him before he made it and, reluctantly, he turned back and approached the counter.
"I don't know what kind of special charms you possess, cher, but I have never seen Viktor speak to anyone before. You should be honored he chose you," Chris said, green eyes full of unasked questions and a hint of jealousy.
"Yeah, well, I screwed it up, so his choice was clearly misplaced," Yuuri grumbled in response as he shrugged, more to himself than anyone else.
"Perhaps not, cher. Perhaps not." With a consoling smile, Chris turned back to his work, leaving Yuuri's thoughts in even more of a disarray as he exited the cafe.
Yuuri walked slowly back to his tiny apartment, not bothering to raise his umbrella against the persistent drizzle. His thoughts were too full of questions to notice or care. Of darkness and light. Of bright blue eyes and the crushing sadness that lurked behind them.
How could the most brilliant person he'd ever met truly believe that he'd lost his light? Viktor was a beacon, shining and shimmering and calling him home when he'd been adrift for so long. How was it possible that Viktor could see Yuuri's hidden light but not his own? It was both perplexing and incredibly distressing.
He needed to do something. But what? Would his feeble attempts even be welcome? Judging from his past interactions with other humans, the answer was most likely no. But he itched to help in some way, if only to find an excuse that would earn him acceptance within the orbit of such an illuminating person. If the only thing he could offer was a shoulder and a listening ear, he would do so willingly and hope it would be accepted, as meager an offering as it was.
If he was ever lucky enough to spend more time with him, Yuuri vowed that he would meet Viktor where he was.