Chapter Text
Victor ran through the parking lot as fast as he possibly could while juggling a coffee, papers, and his cellphone. He was constantly checking the time on it, even though he knew the minutes continued to tick by no matter how many times he did so. He shouldered his way through the front door of the school when the receptionist buzzed him in, desperately comparing the room numbers around him to the ones on the flimsy map he held in his hand.
When he finally made it to the right classroom after running up and down hallways and staircases, he was already twenty minutes late. He collapsed onto one of the three tiny chairs placed outside and composed himself as much as possible. He had talked to Yuri’s teacher only once over the phone, and they were the kind of person that made Victor feel like he was back in school himself, just waiting outside the principal’s office to be scolded.
Victor sighed in frustration. Not only was he almost a half an hour late to this parent-teacher conference, but this was the third time this week that he had been forced to keep Yuri at school after-hours until he could pick him up. He was embarrassed and ashamed, two very unfamiliar and irritating emotions for Victor.
As the minutes ticked by, Victor only relaxed a little. He thought the school would be more-or-less deserted by now, but a man who was clearly a teacher walked up to the classroom door. He had on glasses, a simple white pressed shirt, and one of the ugliest ties Victor had ever seen in his mortal life. He was still very nice to look at, though.
The man gave Victor a passing glance and polite smile when they accidentally met eyes, before shifting the pages of paper in his hands to have one free hand to knock on the door to the classroom. However, the guy froze before he was actually able to rap at the door.
Victor glanced sideways at him as the man fidgeted and huffed quietly next to him.
“Mr. Feltsman is in a meeting right now.” The sound of Victor’s voice apparently made the guy jump a bit in surprise. “If you were wondering.”
“Oh, um, yes thank you. I was.”
There was an awkward moment where neither of them said anything, but the guy was still standing in front of the door and they were just staring at one another. Victor noticed he had really long eye lashes.
“Do you…want me to give him something for you?” Victor offered. He even stood to extend a hand in a silent offer to take some of the loose papers threatening to fall from the man’s hands.
“No, no, it’s alright. I can wait. It’s something I need to talk to him about in person. And I couldn’t ask another teacher to do it.”
“Oh, no, I’m not a teacher. I’m here for parent-teacher conferences.”
The guy startled, his stack of papers rattling dangerously loose in his grasp. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I just – you look way too young to be a parent. I mean, y’know, to have a child.”
“Adopted. Adopted child,” Victor corrected. He thought he had said that pretty neutrally, but the teacher seemed to pick up on the bigger story behind those words and backed off.
“I’m sorry, I – I shouldn’t have assumed so much.” This teacher looked really pretty when he ran his hands through his hair in embarrassment. And as much as Victor loved how easily he seemed to blush, he also felt bad for making him feel so embarrassed.
“Don’t worry about it, really. It’s not a big deal.” He threw on his most charming and disarming smile, attempting to deviate the conversation. “You’re a teacher, though, right?”
The man seemed to still be a bit shaken, but his smile was returning. “Yes, I am. Well, more like a teacher-in-training, but still. I teach some basic classes and assist with other teachers’ lessons.”
“Well then maybe you know my little troublemaker, Yuri Plisetsky.”
The teacher’s eyes got wide and Victor thought it was adorable. “You’re – Yuri’s – oh, of course! I had him last year for literature. It was the first class I taught by myself.”
“Well, that must have been difficult with him there, so I’ve heard. Your opinion towards him seems to be by far the most positive I’ve seen from any of his teachers so far.”
“Oh no, I loved having him in class. Sure he was sometimes disruptive and absolutely refused to call me by my name, but – “
“Wait,” Victor stopped him. “Literature class. Last year. You’re Mr. Katsuki.”
Mr. Katsuki seemed to wince. “Call me Yuuri, please. I have the kids call me by my first name, so the parents shouldn’t have to speak to me so formally either. I think that’s why Yuri refused to call me by my first name. Even after I told him mine would actually be spelled with two “U”s, he still wasn’t happy.”
“Yuuri,” Victor repeated. Testing it on his tongue. It felt different than saying Yuri’s name for some reason, like all the vowels were longer and the consonants softer. “My Yurochka loved having you as a teacher, y’know.”
Victor enjoyed watching Yuuri’s eyes go big again. “You really don’t have to say that to make me feel better. I can take rejection from a sixth-grader.”
Victor laughed, and Yuuri blushed a little bit. “I’m not just being nice, I swear. Yuri never talks about his teachers, but he talked non-stop about you. What you were teaching, how you were teaching it. To the untrained ear it sounds like complaining, but I know him. Yuri’s a very precocious child, he doesn’t talk about things unless he’s interested in them. You made learning fun for him for the first time, I think. I remember thinking, ‘I should really meet this person and thank them.’”
Yuuri looked at Victor with an expression of interest, rather than discomfort like Victor was expecting. “Well, I never saw you last year.”
Victor sighed in embarrassment. The universe was giving him more and more reasons to regret never having gone to parent-teacher conferences before this. “I know, I’m sorry. I have a very chaotic job with irregular hours. I really do try to get to these things, but – “
“It’s alright, Mr. Plisetsky.”
“Victor, please.”
“Victor.” Yuuri smiled. Victor thought he saw the sun. “I know you try your best. Yuri told me that much last year. Trust me, there are parents out there that do a lot but don’t care nearly as much about their child as you clearly do.”
Victor didn’t know where Yuuri had been hiding all this time, but God it felt like he just understood everything in Victor’s life at a moment’s glance. It made Victor’s heart go weak in his chest.
“Yuri’s an incredibly intelligent and talented child,” Yuuri continued. “As much as he may have been a bit of a troublemaker, I couldn’t help but care about his future. It’s wonderful to know he has a guardian that will support him and help him reach his fullest potential.”
Victor would look back on this exchange later and would be pretty sure that he had a vision of marrying Yuuri for a brief second in that moment.
“Yeah. Yuri is pretty incredible, huh?” Sometimes Victor forgot to completely appreciate the wonderful little boy he was lucky enough to call family. He got a bit wistful and distracted, staring at the classroom door that he knew his boy was behind.
“Um, yeah, anyways, that’s just – that’s just, y’know, my opinion based on what I know.” Victor turned back to Yuuri, who was blushing furiously and stumbling badly over his words. “You don’t – have to – listen to me. Just ignore all that.”
Something in Victor cried out to help this man gain more confidence in his own opinions and intelligence, because clearly they were far beyond what Yuuri thought about himself.
“Don’t say that,” Victor soothed. Yuuri swallowed and calmed down. Victor just observed him for a moment before speaking again. “Are you going to have Yuri in class again?”
“No, that’s impossible unfortunately. I only teach fifth grade and lower.”
“So there’s no possibility of you being his teacher in the future?”
“I don’t think so. Unless I was suddenly promoted in the next year.” Yuuri laughed lightly.
“Then it wouldn’t be wildly inappropriate for me to ask you out?”
Yuuri stopped laughing and stared like a deer in the headlights. His mouth opened and closed a few times.
“Sorry if that was a bit forward,” Victor backtracked. He had been so confident that maybe Yuuri was at least interested.
“No! No! It’s not – “ Yuuri rushed. “It’s not too forward. I’m just – “ He looked down at his finger that was fidgeting with the papers in his hand. “I’ve never…been asked out before.”
“Well that doesn’t seem possible,” Victor stated.
“Far more possible than you can even imagine,” Yuuri muttered.
“So is that a no?” Victor asked, taking a risk and stepping just a bit into Yuuri’s personal space.
“No,” Yuuri responded immediately, matching Victor’s gaze.
“Oh yeah?” Victor was pushing his luck, but he moved even closer to Yuuri. Close enough that if anyone saw them like this it would be immediately obvious as to what was happening.
It felt like Yuuri’s voice suddenly dropped two octaves. His eyes were dark and sharp as they met Victor’s, almost intimidating him in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. All of the sudden, Victor saw another side of Yuuri. Regardless of whether Yuuri had even been on a date before, Victor could see a sheer magnitude of raw sexuality lurking beneath his surface. Underneath that boring white button-up and that hideous tie, Yuuri was more confident than even Victor could begin to imagine. Victor hadn’t been expecting this at all, but he really liked it. Intelligent, funny, and sexy too. Christ.
“You’re not just too young to be a parent, y’know,” Yuuri said lowly between them. Victor quirked an eyebrow. “You’re way too hot too.”
Victor let the weight of the tension between them linger for a moment, before he reached into his pocket to pull out a pen. He put the cap end between his teeth and pulled the pen out of it. He hadn’t lost eye contact with Yuuri, but at that point Yuuri’s eyes glanced down just for a moment. Then Yuuri bit his lower lip.
It was taking every ounce of Victor’s self-control to not knock the loose papers out of Yuuri’s hands, press him against the nearest wall, and make out with him.
When Victor grasped Yuuri’s free hand, the teacher’s whole body seemed to shiver. Victor held it between them, proceeding to write his phone number into Yuuri’s inner wrist. When Victor and Yuuri both looked back up at each other, it felt like they were both using what little shame they had left to keep themselves in check.
“Call me,” Victor all but whispered. He even added a wink for extra measure. He was pretty sure his intentions were made clear by this point, but it couldn’t hurt. Especially as he got a close-up view of Yuuri’s face flushing a healthy shade of red.
Yuuri’s mouth opened to say something, but suddenly the doorknob to the classroom turned and they flew apart. Yuuri adjusted his glasses and ugly tie while Victor rushed to cap the pen and put it back in his pocket, just as the couple of parents previously in a meeting with Mr. Feltsman exited and walked past them. They gave the fidgety Yuuri and Victor strange looks and all the two men could offer back were awkward smiles.
The parents walked away, leaving Victor and Yuuri alone once more. They didn’t dare move back towards each other, but they shared slightly embarrassed flirty smiles from either side of the doorway.
The next time the door opened, twelve-year-old Yuri shuffled out with his backpack slung over his shoulder. He noticed Yuuri first.
“Hey, Katsudon,” he said.
Yuuri winced. “Hello, Yuri.” He glanced back up to Victor. “That’s another thing he likes to call me other than Mr. Katuski. He got it from my last name, but it didn’t help when he found out that it was also my favorite food.”
“It’s also because you’re fat,” Yuri said.
“Yurochka. Watch it,” Victor scolded. Yuri slouched a bit, but didn’t roll his eyes: an improvement.
“Anyway,” Yuri changed the subject. “Mr. Feltsman said you’re too late. He doesn’t want to meet with you.”
Victor sighed. He could make a fuss that he made all the effort to get here at all, but at the end of the day, he knew it was his fault. “Okay.”
“He said maybe if you actually took the initiative to schedule a meeting yourself you might make it on time.
“Okay.”
“He said he’s not mad, he’s just disapp – “
“Okay, Yuri! I – I get the picture, alright?”
“Alright.”
Yuuri interjected softly. “Well, have a good rest of the day Yuri! You too, Victor.”
Victor looked back up at Yuuri and gave him one last smile, much less dazzling but far more heartfelt than the first one he ever gave him. “Thank you. I hope to talk to you again sometime.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Yuri looked up, back and forth between the two of them as they proceeded to silently smile at each other. “Oh. My. God,” Yuri said when it dawned on him.
Victor looked down at him. “What?” As much as Victor tried, he couldn’t quite wipe away the residual smile in time to fool Yuri. Not that he could have anyway. Yuri just stared at him with eyes squinted in disbelief and nose scrunched in disgust, making for quite the expression.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” Yuri groaned and grabbed Victor’s hand, starting to try and drag him away. But Victor stayed turned to face Yuuri, waving goodbye.
“Goodbye Yuuri!” Victor tripped a little going backwards over one of the chairs in the hallway.
Yuuri giggled at him, but also missed the doorknob when he went to grab it, too busy watching Victor stumble his way down the hall in Yuri’s grasp. He then proceeded to blush and giggle at himself.
“C’mon I want to go home, old man!” Victor ignored Yuri and only turned around once Yuuri disappeared inside the classroom.
“You’re so gross,” Yuri muttered when Victor finally got his hand free and just walked beside him.
Victor sighed as they made their way outside. “One day, Yurochka, you’ll understand.”
“No thanks.”
Victor laughed, light and airy and feeling happier than he had in months.