Yura lies in a hospital bed with his back propped up with a pillow. Otabek is fast asleep, his head resting next to his friend's left hand. Yura's right arm, permanently damaged by the impact of chip the master implanted into his neck, has been replaced by the mechanical arm Otabek designed and made for him. It took Otabek over a year. He is finally living his dream of being an engineer.

Next to them on the counter is a vase filled with orange colored tiger lilies. Victor sits by the window, his long silvery hair pulled in a loose ponytail. He scrolls through the news on his phone as distraction. Yuri lies on his lap fast asleep. Victor tugs the blanket a little to make sure Yuri isn't cold. Ms. Lilia graciously offered to take care of their son Jakob for the evening so they can be here.

Otabek rubs his eyes wondering how long he has been asleep for, he looks down at his watch, it says 2:55 am. He watches Yura's chest rise and fall. His face looks different, because he has been with Yura every day he does not know when those subtle changes happened. Yura looks older, the angle of his jaw more defined. He lies in a pool of his golden mane now down to the small of his back. Otabek cannot help himself but to hold onto his friend's left hand. He silently prays for Yura to wake up and to remember who he was. He silently promises even if Yura doesn't remember, or isn't the same, he would take care of him for the rest of his life.

Suddenly Yura coughs and the grip on Otabek's hand tightens.

The window is open, fresh warm April air with a hint of smell of earth after the rain fills the room.

For the first time in five years, Yurio opens his eyes. Forgetting what the sound of his own voice is, he whispers, "Beka...?"

Otabek's vision blurs, a twisting feeling rises from his stomach towards his chest. After sleeping for five years inside Yakov's tank, the first words from his friend's lips is his name. Hot drops of his tears fall onto the Yura's hand.

"Beka," Yura comforts him, his forest green eyes glistening too, slowly he lifts his mechanical arm, not used to its weight. With trembling fingers he reaches for Beka's face, "don't cry."

Even more tears spill from Otabek's eyes with those words, for five years he waited for this single moment. "Ok Yura, if you say so." He cannot stop himself, he covers his face with his hands.

Yura glances around the room, his face light up when he sees Yuri asleep on Victor's lap, and Victor nodding off on the couch, his silvery hair spilling over Yuri's face.

Yura takes a deep breath, the sound of his own voice almost foreign, "Yuri!" He calls out.

Yuri stirrs in his sleep, breathing Victor's familiar scent, slowly he opens his eyes, then he leaps up into the air. "Yurio!" With his mouth wide open next to Yurio's hospital bed, he shakes his brother's shoulders to make sure this is real. Yuri pinches himself to confirm that he is not dreaming.

"C'mon, not you too, since when did you -" Yurio smiles as he sees Yuri's eyes glistening. He thought his brother doesn't know how to cry. He squeezes Yuri's hand with his mechanical arm on the right, its heaviness will take some time for him to get used to.

Then Yuri pulls him forwards into a tight embrace, like that day when they first met under the afternoon sun of Brazil. Like that day when Yuri promised he will never again leave him behind.

Victor's blue-green eyes light up as he covers his mouth with one hand. He dials Phichit's phone number.

A minute later, Phichit turns on the lights in Yurio's hospital room. He is in the same sterile green scrubs he always wears, with a few lines on his face imprinted from his pillow. He presses his lips together for a tight smile. He take a deep breath. Please come back the same way you went to sleep, he prays. He has seen too much, people becoming dependent on machines or on others just to live another day. The tank was a gamble, the surgery was too, despite JJ's firm hand that patted him on the back afterwards telling him his job was flawless.

Yuri move out of Phichit's way.

"Did you plan my brother's wedding?" Yurio crosses his arms across his chest.

Phichit nods at same time lets out a huge sigh of relief, he is making sense, that's a good sign. He pulls out a penlight from the pocket of his scrubs.

"Yurio, let Phichit examine you," Yuri leans against the dresser with tiger lilies blooming on top.

"Fine," Yurio didn't protest, "I am fine."

Phichit shines a light into both of his eyes to make sure his pupils are reacting, asked him to raise his eyebrows then puff out his cheeks, and follow his fingers with his eyes. After a series of neurological tests Phichit looks satisfied. "Alright, a few silly questions, say your full name."

"Yuri Plisetski."

"Do you know where you are?" Phichit has a feeling he is just fine.

"In a fancy ass hospital talking to my loaded neurosurgeon," Yurio rolls his eyes.

Phichit chuckles, doctors are far from "loaded", especially in the beginning of their careers. It's been twelve years since he first sold his soul to medical school. This is the first year of him finishing residency and becoming a real surgeon on his own. Life feels real again, he knows what normal people do on weekends, and what it's like to sleep seven hours per night. "Do you know the date today?"

"That's not a fair question-" Yurio's eye wander toward Victor with his silvery hair now past the small of his back tied back. He wonders, how long has he been asleep for.

Phichit knows Yurio is right, "today is April 22nd, 2017."

Five years, Yurio looks down at his hands, his fingers are longer than he is used to, "I am...twenty one." He runs his fingers through his hair that is now past his waist.

"No way, I am an...uncle?" Yurio takes one sip of ginger ale from a small can next to his hospital bed, his forest green eyes widen with delight. "This makes me sound so damn old...like Victor."

Yuri grins as he picks up a pair of scissors, "His name is Jakob."

"You named him after Yakov didn't you!" Yurio realizes that the name of his brother's son is a variation of Yakov's name.

"We did," Yuri begins to snip off the long blonde locks of Yurio's hair, like when they first met when Yurio was eight. "You remember the first time I did this? How long it took to untangle everything. You were a dirty snot nosed little brat..."

Yurio remembers, after Yuri rescued him from the human traffickers, he remembers how gentle his brother's hands were despite being a professional killer. He nods. "I hope you are not getting rusty after all these years."

"I am capable of a lot of things, Yurio, give your old brother a little more credit" Yuri smirks, as long locks fall onto the ground next to them. A wave of breeze comes into through the windows, sending a few blonde locks flying. "Close your eyes, I am cutting the front now."

Yurio feels a few soft strands fall from his face, and the warmth of Yuri's hand.

"What happened to Howl?" Yurio asks about the cat that he first picked up from the streets when the world is falling apart.

Yuri laughs, "You have a really great friend. I offered to keep that little monster despite the constant hissing, biting, and going after my eyeballs, but Otabek insisted he'll look after him. Howl was living in the same room as the tank where you slept all along."

Yurio gulps, he feels heat rushing to his face. Beka...

"The last time I heard, the little monster actually lets Otabek pet him now," Yuri makes the final touches. "All done."

Yuri holds onto his brother's arm gently to make sure he does not fall, years of sleeping inside of the tank made his muscles weaker. He is only beginning to learn how to walk and how to breathe again.

Yurio glances at his reflection in the mirror and smiles at his sworn brother from the mirror. His golden hair is shorter than when it used to be when he was fifteen, his bangs parted to one side just past his green eyes. His face looks older, he has a hard time recognizing himself. He is now taller than Yuri, and Otabek as well.

They talked until the end of day to catch up on everything that happened in the past five years.

His rehab took four long months. Ms. Lilia scolds him often for overexerting himself. Otabek promises him to take him to see the world at the end of it, that kept him going. Yuri insists for him to go to college afterwards. Yurio rolled his eyes to that though, college would be a breeze for him.

Otabek keeps his promise, when Yurio is being discharged from rehab, he says, "pack your things, we are in leaving in six hours."

Yura's bright eyes lights up.

Yura holds onto the waist of Otabek's faux leather jacket on the back of his motorcycle, he lifts his chin into the air feeling the gentle ocean wind against his face. They drive up on a single lane road spiralling towards the mountain top. Light begins to appear on the eastern horizon. Though the island is tropical the temperature on the mountain top drops. The morning star shines brightly above them, watching over them.

They are going to the same mountaintop where Victor and Yuri said their wedding vows at dawn.

Otabek, a man of few words, hums a little while driving.

Finally they reach the mountaintop. There are many others tourist and locals a like waiting for the sun to rise. They are at an elevation where they are above the clouds. Yura zips up his black hoodie and unbuckles his helmet.

They stand next to each other in silence as the horizon gradually becomes painted in the shades of orange and gold. The locals break into song in their native tongue welcoming the sunrise. Their powerful voices echo over the shorter mountains below.

Yura and Beka watch sun rise over the clouds in silence, side by side. This moment sacred and surreal. Beka, thank you for not giving up on me...Yura whispers in his mind.

They leave the mountaintop and make their descend, along the way Yura insists on his friend letting him try riding the motorcycle. Beka tells him he can once they are on flatter grounds.

They drive along the winding single lane highway with rain forest on either side, stopping occasionally to gaze up on the secret waterfall.

They stop to swim on the beaches with soft white sand.

One morning while on the island Beka notices his friend acting strange.

"Why are you staring at me, do I have something on my face," Otabek wrinkles his forehead and raises one eyebrow.

"Yes, there's something...on your eyelash on the left," Yura replies halfheartedly.

Otabek rubs his left eye, "is it gone?"

"I'll get it," Yura shakes his head.

"Let me try again - " Otabek is about to reach up for his eye again.

"Beka, just shut up and close your eyes," Yura commands. Yuri Plisetski is confident, but what he is about to do is his first time. His heart is racing so fast he can hear his own blood pulsating inside his ears. He takes a deep breath, leans forward and presses his lips firmly against his friend's.

Suddenly Otabek opens his eyes in shock. He has never seen Yura's face this close before. The bridge of his nose high, his green eyes closed, his eyelashes golden and surprisingly long. Yura rests one arm against his shoulder, and his knee on his lap, his lips soft and they have the lingering taste of the coffee they just had.

Otabek closes his eyes. The feeling he has for Yura that he decided to bury pour out of him, like lava flowing from an erupting volcano. He convinced himself having Yura's friendship is more than enough. He didn't know Yura felt the same way all along. Part of him protests, Yura has been sleeping for five years, he was sixteen when he was placed inside the tank. Even though his body changes, time did stop for him for five whole years. The rational side of Beka wanted to give him time, to grow, to heal, to catch up to the present. The other part of Otabek is on fire. He cannot take his eyes off the gorgeous young man before him with hair the same colour as the morning star, and green eyes filled with life. He wants him. He suppresses his fantasies of things he wants to do with him. He wants him bad.

Finally, Otabek lightly returns his kiss once, and wraps his strong arms around Yura and pulls him close.

"Beka," Yura gazes towards the ground blushing, "you are so thickheaded, I swear..." he mumbles.

"Why is that?" Otabek grins. One of his arms is still around Yura's waist.

"You couldn't tell how I felt about you all this time...until I had to do this, until I have to spell it out for you," exasperated, Yura points one finger towards his friend, "I like you Otabek, actually to be more brutally honest I fucking love you."

Otabek inhales sharply, his heart is beating so fast that he can hardly breathe. He does not say anything, after all he is a man of few words.

"I heard everything, Beka," Yura leans forwards and wraps his arms around his friend and presses his face against Beka's chest.

Now it is Otabek's turn to blush. He spoke to Yura every day when he was asleep. Without thinking, he told Yura everything on his mind for the past five years.

"You played music to me, read books, the news...and you said you loved me." Yura can hear Beka's racing heart about to leap out of his chest.

"I-"

"Shh-" Yura presses one finger against his lip, "you said it already and you can't take it back. Let me make things crystal clear."

Otabek feels completely helpless against those beautiful green eyes.

"I want you, Beka," Yura furls his eyebrows, "the same way Victor wants my brother...I want to do those things with you."

Otabek wants to scoop him up at this moment and carry him onto the bed and pin him down, but he decides to control himself. Yura still needs time to heal, though his body have grown, when he fell asleep he was sixteen and he woke up only six months ago. He runs one hand and ruffles Yura's hair. "I can't resist you Yura, I can never say no to you but I do have one condition."

"What is it?" Yura pouts, a few golden strands fall over his eager eyes.

"We go slow."

Yura sticks out his tongue, "fine." This is why you'll never get laid in real life, which is good for me, I suppose...Yura thinks to himself grinning.

The pants stay on. Otabek repeats to himself firmly. He shakes his head at the though and begin to smile. His grin mirrors Yura's and they both begin to laugh until their stomach hurts.

Of all moments to pick from to finally let his friend know about his true feelings, Yura picks the most ordinary moment on the most ordinary morning. It wasn't on the peak of the mountain over the clouds at sunrise. It wasn't by the endless ocean or by the waterfall in the rainforest. It was in the morning after they sat on the balcony sipping coffee.

And to them, these ordinary moments are the most precious things in the world.

It's the anniversary of Yakov's death, on a beautiful day in the fall. Yuri walks ahead with their son Jakob sitting on his neck. Jakob ruffles Yuri's hair with his hands making it messy. "Katsudon!" He laughs as he pulls on Yuri's ear playfully.

"No, Jakob, it's papa!" Yuri protests.

"Katsudon! Katsudon!" The little boy is not listening. Recently Yuri made his signature katsudon, where he stole the recipe from a famous chef when he was on a mission for the organization years ago. That somehow leads to their son calling him katsudon...

Victor laughs from behind them. There is a thin layer of orange and red leaves covering the cobblestone path in the graveyard. The entire mountain behind is painted a multitude of autumn colours. Ms. Lilia walks next to Victor in a red wool coat, in her arms a bouquet of white roses.

"Victor," she begins, "I was going through his things, photos...I meant to give you this." She takes out a photograph from her pocket.

Victor's smile widens with delight, on it two people in their twenties laughing with each other, obviously in love. The woman has pale golden hair and eyes like the colour of the ocean.

This is the second picture that Victor has of his parents. His parents' ring now rests on Yuri's finger.

"All the young men in the university are after your mother," Lilia chuckles, "but she only had eyes for your father."

Victor imagines his parents as graduate students under Yakov's wings, too bright for their own good. He imagines young Yakov with a full head of hair. Mom, dad, I wanted you to know that I am happy...

"Your father was soft spoken and kind, your mother, she was vibrant and full of life." Lilia slows her pace as she stands before Yakov's white tombstone. "And you, Vitya, your aura is just like your father," she faces him and smiles, "but you have your mother's eyes."

"I wish I had known them, I wish...I could introduce Yuri, and Jakob too." A wave of autumn wind picks up a swirl of leaves in a spiral into the air.

Lilia nods, "your parents would be proud, Yakov too." She placed the bundle of roses by the tombstone.

Victor nods as he lifts his head towards the sky and closes his eyes feeling the soft autumn breeze against his face. Mom, dad, Yakov, wherever you are, I want you to know that I am happy... and thank you for watching over us.

After the final battle Victor and Chris found the cure to the virus causing the world to almost perish using the forbidden Project Delta developed by Victor and Yakov.

On Yuri's and Victor's wedding day on top of the cliff, Victor tossed the chips containing Project Genesis and Project Delta into the ravine below. At same time, Yuri parted with the raven ring that carries the ultimate power of the organization. Yuri offered all members of the organization a chance at freedom. Many complied and parted their lives from the organization forever. Phichit was busy removing implanted chips from their necks.

There are those who wanted to stay, those who stood by Yuri on the day of the final battle.

The leaders of the underground City of the Eternal who initiated the idea of creating a new world after destroying the old one were tried and punished for crimes against humanity.

But not all from that city carried that view. Under a Yuri and Minami's wings, the children who were engineered to be 'perfect' by Project Genesis begin to adapt to the world.

The organization changed forever.

With technology beyond this time, they became guardians of this new, imperfect, but beautiful world from the shadows.

"Victor," Yuri's wraps an arm around him, and rests his head against his bare chest listening to his even heartbeats, "do you remember how we met?"

Victor opens his blue-green eyes, still groggy from sleep, he ruffles Yuri's hair affectionately. "How could I forget," he kisses the top of Yuri's head, inhaling his familiar scent, "by the way, happy thirtieth birthday Yuri."

Rays of morning sun shine through the blinds, outside their window is the cloudless cerulean sky. Yuri cannot believe till this day that he could wake up every day like this. On some mornings he would pinch himself, to confirm that this is real. Victor would laugh at him and tell him, yes, love, this is real.

Once upon a time Yuri did not dare to dream.

He did not know how to cry.

He thought love was for the weak.

He did not believe that he would live past the age of thirty.

And he was wrong.

To my readers:

It feels strange finishing this story, and cathartic in a way. I promised to finish a story that I started, and here I am!

As I mentioned before, the ending was changed. Here is the original ending: Yurio dies from the chip implanted in his neck being activated, before he dies he whispers in Victor's ear, "I want pieces of me to live on, so my brother would not be lonely, so part of me can stay by his side...always..." implying that he wanted Victor to use the forbidden Project Genesis one last time using his genes. The story ends with Yuri and Victor watching their 4 year old son who looks exactly like Yurio skate on ice on Yuri's 30th birthday.

In the end I couldn't do that to Yurio...so I betrayed the title of this story.

For those of you who stayed with me till the end...thank you.

xoxo

Antares

P.S. I am looking for a beta reader for my next stories. If you like my imagination and are good at looking at writing critically, please PM me.

The next story:

Demon Song [M]

Victor thought he saved a dark haired boy from the villagers trying to burn him screaming, "demon child!"

Unbeknownst to him, Yuri didn't need saving.

Re: Reviews:

JazRose: Thank you for your kind words!

SomeRandomPerson: Thank you for your support through this story every step of the way :), I truly appreciate it. The other longer story that I finished was an original in the fantasy genre. I did it for the 3-day novel contest (where, all of the writing must be done in 3 days...I did it not to win but to make myself complete a story). Hope you'll read my next story. My goal is to improve the quality of the writing. I know in this story there are a lot of tense changes (writing in the present tense is tricky). Hope you enjoy this chapter, I wanted it to end on a lighthearted note. 3

Lightstormlyn: Thank you for pointing out the issues I have with writing mechanics, I appreciate it! I am still working on making peace with the grammar police and polishing my work before posting. Hope you enjoy this one!

Cuckoo: Thank you for letting me know your thoughts! Hope you enjoy this one!