AN: You guys.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yuri! On Ice

YOU GUYS. This tore my heart out, repeatedly stabbed it, then proceeded to cover it with a band aid. You're welcome for the tears, don't read in public if you're wearing mascara (if you're a rich SOB and you've got the waterproof stuff, then more power to you, go ahead). I hope you enjoy!

CH4— Butterfly Whisperer

Victor was acting weirdly.

Well, weirdly enough for someone Yuri had only known for a little over 24 hours.

Yuri glanced at Victor sideways as they walked side by side down the damp concrete sidewalks. Birds had yet to brave the newly washed air, and most people were still in their homes, unaware that the storm had passed. It was as still and silent as death. The pair's footsteps synched and became the only sounds they could hear.

"So, where exactly are we meeting your boyfriend? And don't just say that we're meeting at a "place" or whatever, like you did last time." Yuri demanded, suddenly remembering something his mother had told him about talking to and/or going anywhere with strangers.

"The cemetery." Victor blurted out, cringing like he hadn't meant to say it.

"The cemetery?"

"It's… peaceful?" Victor offered uncertainly.

"There's flowers and stuff, and it's quiet. It's like a park, but… with less… people." Victor winced at his own wording, much to Yuri's amusement.

"With less living people, you mean?" Yuri grinned sardonically, feeling odd rush of pride thrilling through his veins when Victor laughed at this.

"We're so respectful and considerate, huh?" Victor said.

"Making fun of things is easier than feeling upset over them." Yuri said with a casual shrug. "Actually, the more I think about, the better a cemetery sounds like for a date place." He remarked. Victor raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "I guess it's like bringing some happiness and love to a sad place, right? That's kind of adorable. And it's practical too: there won't be a lot of people hanging around, so you'll get more privacy, plus it's free. It's kind of ingenious idea, actually." Yuri explained.

"Most people wouldn't see it that way." Victor said slowly, with a quirked lip.

"Well, they're stupid and closed-minded." Yuri retorted haughtily with his nose in the air, which earned him another laugh from Victor."Which cemetery are we visiting?"

"Melancholic Hill." Victor stated, as if it were on reflex. Yuri grinned wistfully.

"That's my favourite one. They always have the most flowers."

"You have a favourite graveyard?" Victor asked, as if this were any weirder than regularly attending dates in cemeteries.

"Says the man who's bringing his date to a garden of dead people."

"You said it was adorable!" Victor protested, sounding offended.

"It is, but that doesn't keep it from being weird! And anyways, most of the cemeteries within a twenty-mile radius of the house have at least three dead relatives of mine in them." Yuri shrugged nonchalantly at Victor's mortified face."Well, they have to go somewhere, don't they? I guess you could cremate them, but my family has been more on the... traditional side of things." Victor still looked disturbed.

"Oh, I—" It suddenly clicked n Yuri's mind. "Aw, geez! My family has lived in this town for generations, and when they die they're buried here— that's all! All those generations add up to be a lot of people needing to be buried when they die— I don't go around killing my relatives and burying them in every cemetery possible just for the heck of it." Yuri scoffed. Victor gave him a bug-eyed stare. Realizing the implications of what he just said, Yuri rushed to fix his statement.

"Wait! I don't do that at all, whether it's for the heck of it, or not— murdering is illegal, and I would never— I mean, besides the legal implications there's a whole list of basic human morals you'd be violating if you— stop laughing at me, you twit!" Yuri demanded, blushing and embarrassed at his stuttering and fumbling.

"Sorry, sorry!" Victor exclaimed between gasps for air. "So, basically, the reason you have a favourite cemetery is because you have a lot of dead relatives, and therefore have to visit a lot of graves at several different cemeteries." Victor clarified, still fighting for precious oxygen. Yuri rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath, mostly irritated with his own inability to speak his own language.

"That's exactly what I said, why are you laughing?" Yuri deadpanned. This only caused Victor to double over, wheezing for breath. "Wait, isn't Melancholic Hill the other way?" Yuri asked, pointing over his shoulder, suddenly realizing where they were.

"Yeah, I just need to— er, I usually bring him flowers. To our, uh… to our dates, you know? He likes them. Flowers." Victor stumbled over his words a bit, which Yuri found to be relieving. Victor seemed like a well put together person, but he got so flustered when he talked about his boyfriend— so he was human, after all!

"That's really sweet of you." Yuri said honestly. He'd love for someone to bring him flowers— then again, he had his mother's garden. There were enough flowers in there for an entire village.

"I think so too. Hopefully, Issei agrees." Victor said, voice suddenly soft.

The way Victor said his boyfriend's name almost made Yuri come undone. Victor's eyes were soft, seeming to glow with love and admiration. His voice was almost a whisper, as if he were savouring the sound, the taste of the name on his tongue. There was also an air of… longing? A bittersweet kind of feeling that usually came about when one missed something, especially if it was something they couldn't have anymore. Yuri figured Victor must just be really looking forward to the date.

"That's why you were stealing my mom's flowers!" Yuri threw an accusatory finger out in Victor's face, suddenly seeing the light. Victor jolted at the sudden exclamation, staring cross-eyed at Yuri's finger. He nodded, looking a bit embarrassed.

"Well, your mom grows his favourites: peonies and roses. Those are apparently the best-selling flowers at the shoppe closest to the cemetery, so they're almost always out of the colour he likes." Victor said, stepping to the side.

With all their talking, Yuri had completely lost track of where they were. They were currently standing in front of a massive explosion of plants. You could hardly see the actual building of what Yuri assumed was the florist shoppe because there were so many plants in front of it. They sat in wheelbarrows, in pots, in jars. They sat in window boxes, they hung from and tangled around trellises and arches— they were everywhere.

"Which colour does he like?" Yuri asked, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the jungle that was this flower shoppe. He wondered for a split second if his mother had converted her garden into a shoppe because, if she did, this was what it would probably look like.

"Pink." Victor said in a hushed tone. Yuri looked over, concern painted across his features, but they leveled out to a soft smile. Victor was reaching out to a single pink rose, his fingertips barely brushing the delicate petals.

"Looks like we're in luck, then!" Yuri said joyfully as Victor plucked the single rose from the bunch of red and white ones that it had been drowning in. Victor glanced at Yuri.

"Looks like we are." He agreed, taking the rose into the shoppe to pay for it. While Victor paid and chatted with the pretty blonde at the register, Yuri poked around the flowers, sniffing and stroking them.

When he had come to the end of the left side of the flower display, he looked up to head over to the right side but stopped short. There was a telephone pole at the edge of the sidewalk with pink flowers stacked around it. Curious, Yuri stepped closer to it, hoping to find out why there was a small flower shrine at the base of the pole. He found his answer. Pinned to the pole was a flyer with the face of a smiling boy on it. Under the face was a name: Suzuki Issei. Yuri blinked. "What a coincidence," he mused internally. He shrugged and continued on to annoy the flowers on the other side of the display.

"Thanks for waiting." Victor said as he came out of the store. He held the rose that was wrapped in damp newspaper to preserve the flower's freshness.

"No problem." Yuri smiled. The two walked back the way they came and veered off in the direction of the cemetery.

"Oh my God, it's another rainbow!" Yuri practically shouted. He blushed and clapped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry." He muttered to a laughing Victor.

"No, no. By all means, shout away." Victor snorted. He glanced up at the rainbow, and Yuri found himself lost. Not in the beautiful, almost surreal and magical colours that stained across the sky, but in Victor's eyes. As Victor surveyed the rainbow and the skies above them, Yuri saw the sunshine that had just managed to peak out from behind the clouds being reflected in Victor's eyes. They bounced off the light blue irises, making them seem even brighter than before. And the sheer wonder those eyes held as they stared up at the rainbow—

"Yuri, are you okay?" Victor asked, jerking Yuri out of his embarrassing thoughts.

"Oh— er, yeah. Sorry, just got… lost in thought, I guess." Yuri grinned sheepishly. Victor rolled his eyes and began walking in the direction of the cemetery again. When they came across the impressive, wrought iron gate, Victor paused. He was probably nervous. Knowing what little he did of Victor, Yuri was willing to bet the poor guy was probably imagining the worst-case scenario, whatever that might be.

"Victor." Yuri said gently. Victor's neck nearly snapped with the speed that he turned to look at Yuri. "It's okay. It's just a date." That didn't seem to help. Victor gave Yuri a small smile that looked more like a grimace of pain, than an expression of happiness or contentment.

Victor pushed open the gate, wincing as it screeched with age. He started down a small, dirt path that wound around rows of gravestones, Yuri in tow. Yuri loved this cemetery. It was beautiful, with bushes and fruit trees and flowers planted in every available, fertile area possible. There were swings hanging from trees, successfully destroying any last bit of "depressing cemetery" vibe that hadn't been vanquished with the colourful flowers and fruitful trees. Benches and tables made from tree stumps stood proudly, and gravestones gleamed in the sun.

"I love this place." Yuri sighed. Victor didn't respond and seemed to be thinking about something awfully hard. Before he could ask what was wrong, something touched him softly on the face. Going cross eyed, Yuri found a butterfly landing on his nose.

"Oh, hello." He greeted the creature, giggling as it flew off and tickled his face with its wings. Victor was staring at Yuri with something akin to awe. Looking over his shoulder, Yuri tried to figure out what was so beautiful and enchanting that it had captured Victor's attention, but he didn't see anything. Unless Victor just really liked peach trees, which stood in a row behind Yuri.

"Don't mine me, I'm a butterfly whisperer." Yuri grinned as another butterfly landed on him, this time settling on his wrist.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh— uh, I'm fine." Victor stuttered, blushing madly. Yuri raised an eyebrow, but let it go. He began gazing around the cemetery in search for someone that might resemble a worthy boyfriend of Victor Nolastname. "So, where's your beau?" Yuri asked curiously, not seeing anyone at all. "Um, about that…" Victor said, suddenly stopping in front of a row of gravestones. Yuri cocked his head, eyeing Victor with concern.

"Victor, whatever it is you can—" as he spoke, Yuri had followed Victor's gaze down to a single gravestone. His heart stopped:

Suzuki Issei. Friend and soulmate. 1993-2018. "Dance among angels, where you belong."

"Oh." Yuri said lightly.

His mind was blank.

Well.

Crap.

And suddenly that blankness was overridden. Yuri felt horribly insensitive. This whole time he told Victor that he wanted to make sure that his boyfriend was a good guy. Yuri said that it was "just a date." He prattled on about flowers and rainbows and exes, while this whole time Victor had been trying to find a way to say… that!

"Yeah." Victor said. They stood side by side, staring down at the grave for a moment, before Victor knelt down and carefully placed the pink rose on the ground in front of the headstone. They didn't say anything for a while, and Victor stayed on his knees in front of the stone. He pressed his fingertips of one hand against the face of the stone and bowed his head.

"I miss you." He whispered, voice shaking, fingers clenching into a fist against the stone, as if wishing he could drag his lover up from the ground where he lay, or down from the sky where he now lived. Yuri felt the overwhelming desire to cry. He felt his face warm up, and saw his vision go blurry. Rubbing furiously at his eyes, Yuri did his best to remain stoic. To show sympathy, of course, but to not cry over a man he didn't even know.

But he wasn't crying over a man he didn't know. He cried over a dancer. A coffee addict. A lover of pink flowers. The half to another's whole. He knew so much about this man, except his voice. Except his eyes. Except his heart. He just barely knew his face from the grainy photo that was stuck to the pole surrounded in a river of pink flowers. And he wasn't just crying for that dancing, coffee drinking, pink flower loving man. He was crying for the one who was left behind. The one who was currently kneeling at the headstone of his soulmate, forehead pressing against the gravestone like it was the face of his lover he leaned against, and not a cold, hard stone. The man who was currently tensing his body to keep in his sobs— though his shaking shoulders disguised nothing. Yuri fell to his knees with a graceless thud.

Victor flinched, when Yuri landed heavily next to him. He expected his new companion to yell and be angry that Victor lied. He expected Yuri to be upset that Victor deceived him, lead him on. He expected another lecture about not stealing depressed women's flowers, or duping young, impressionable boys. But instead, Yuri dropped on the ground like the life was jerked out of him, and he shifted so close that his thighs pressed against Victor's.

"Yuri—?"

"Shut up." Yuri said gruffly, suddenly throwing his arms around Victor.

Yuri was small, but he was surprisingly strong. Victor felt more secure in that iron grip than he had in a long time. With only a moment's hesitation, he turned around in the embrace so the two faced each other, and wrapped his arms completely around Yuri, burying his face into Yuri's neck. Victor relished in the feeling of being close to someone, the warmth and comfort that radiated out from something as simple as a hug. That was what he missed the most: being close to someone else.

It wasn't kissing until fireworks exploded in his mind. It wasn't giggling together about the stupidest things because he was drunk in love. It wasn't joking around together because no one else shared their quirky sense of humour. What Victor missed the most was the closeness. Holding hands during a walk, elbowing ribs in a teasing manner, jostling shoulders to start a play fight— And hugging. Hugging was the best thing invented. Hugging to reassure safeness after a nightmare or during a storm. Hugging to show love and affection in ways that a kiss couldn't express. Hugging to be close and feel connected to someone you loved because it just felt good. There were so many things you could communicate in a hug, there were so many ways and reasons and moments to hug.

But Victor didn't think he'd ever hug anyone again when Issei passed. He didn't have any other family than Issei— and, yes, he considered Issei family. They had never talked about marriage, but… it felt like that was the direction they were pulling to. They moved through life without a clipboard, without a list of "must-do's," like: get rings, paint white fence, find surrogate, pay student loans. They went with the flow, and the flow was leading to church bells and tall, white cakes.

Victor never thought that in a million years he'd ever fall in love thought he found his one and only. He thought he found his soulmate. He thought that was it for him. He had a shot at love, he found true love— something that is rare and beautiful, something so many people lived without— and he screwed it all up. That was something that Victor had fought with himself about for a long time. He carried the burden of his boyfriend's death as if he was the one who caused the accident. He found a way to trace everything that went wrong on that day back to himself and blame his mistakes for a young person's death.

If he and Issei hadn't fought that morning, maybe Issei would've been more focused while driving. If they had stuck to their carpooling schedule instead of getting so angry they couldn't bear to be in the same car together, Victor would've been driving and maybe he would've been able to avoid the crash. Or maybe, instead of Issei dying, it would've been Victor. And Victor was more than willing to take his place. But suddenly there was Yuri. And Yuri made him want to live. Yuri was like a burst of light, a breath of fresh air, a warm feeling on a frozen night. He was like a parachute that suddenly appears when you're minutes from hitting the ground. He was like lifeboat that shows up when you're seconds away from drowning, when the struggle was too much to bear and you were about to give up and let the waters drag you down. He was there.

And it so felt like he was drowning. It felt like he had been swirling down the drain, a mess of guilt, self-loathing and heartache. He hid his weakness behind a tall shadow and a bright smile, but he felt shame and despair leak out of him whenever he was around Yuri. It was like Yuri dragged the truth from Victor, whether Victor liked it or not. It was like Yuri was the sun that shone through the cracks of a glass window, making what seemed to be whole in the dark suddenly look as if it was about to shatter because the light drew attention to its damage. And it was because whenever he saw Yuri, Victor was reminded of Issei. At first, Victor had struggled with the fact that Issei and Yuri were two completely different people. He kept expecting the same reactions, the same tendencies from Yuri that he had seen in Issei. Victor wondered if his slowly growing fondness for this stranger was due to this stranger's likeness to Issei, and it bothered him. He didn't want to like Yuri because he was the closest thing to Issei that was alive. He wanted to like Yuri because he was Yuri.

But, Victor suddenly found himself loving parts of Yuri that Issei never had, parts that contradicted Issei completely. Parts like, how Yuri could be sweet and innocent one second, and downright dark and sarcastic the next. Things like how Yuri was the kind of person to climb a tree to save a cat, while Issei would stand under the tree and call someone for help. Or at least a ladder. Yuri was impulsive and excited but brought Victor down to Earth and grounded him. And it was in this realization when it became clear to Victor: it's possible to love again.

And the Issei-shaped hole had become a Yuri-shaped hole that was so close to being filled. That the hole in his heart that was impossible to fill, had been healed and changed. The sheer relief was enough to melt Victor down into tears. And boy did Victor sob. He sobbed his heart out, drenching Yuri's poor shirt with tears. And, oddly enough, he heard Yuri bawling his heart out, too. And that struck Victor. The idea that someone he barely knew for more than a day was crying for him and his dead boyfriend. It was strange, but only highlighted the reasons that Victor felt his heart aching to never leave Yuri's side.

"This is the weirdest first date I've ever been on." Yuri suddenly whispered close to Victor's ear, a shaky laugh tickling his skin. Victor felt his heart exploding, soaring, leaping.

"You've never… cried while holding a-a stranger on a…. on a grave before?" Victor managed between sniffles.

"Can't… can't say that I have." Yuri let out a tremulous laugh.

"Want a re-do?" Victor asked hesitantly, fingers twisting in Yuri's clothes as anxiety began to get the better of him. It built up in his chest like a swelling wave. He bit his lip and pressed his forehead into Yuri's shoulder. His heart leapt in his throat as he begged every deity rummaging around upstairs to pleasepleasepleaseplease—

"No." Victor felt his heart plummet into his stomach and ache, his dry throat suddenly burning. Victor attempted to pull himself out of the warm and comforting hug that had suddenly become heartbreaking and tight, but Yuri wouldn't let go. Instead, he clutched onto Victor like a limpet to a boulder, or a child to its mother.

"But I'm down for a second one. Preferably not in a cemetery, though. Gardens are great, but gardens of dead people are a little unnerving."

AN: Is this painfully cliché? It kind of feels that way but, being someone who's only written one other "romance," I think I did pretty okay, if I do say so myself.

Did you cry? For some reason, it's my goal to make people cry (I'm a sicko, sue me).

Let me know what you think, I want to hear you!