[Wei Yong] Looking for Lilia

"Let me figure it out," Phichit Churanon said, sounding half awake, "you were kidnapped by Viktor Nikiforov. 'That' Viktor Nikiforov, Professor Nikiforov , kidnapped you?" He changed his sympathetic tone, "Oh buddy... what did you knock on?"

"I'm sober." Yuuri replied, "Listen to me, okay? Let's just—" There was the sound of potato chip bags being crunched on the other end of the phone, so he could only raise his voice, "Phichit , Phichit! Listen to me! This is serious!"

"Okay, I believe it!" Phichit said, and muttered in a low voice, "Hey people really have a temper".

"Why did Professor Nikiforov kidnap you?" he asked, sounding wide awake. "He's doing secret weapons research for the government and needs a human test subject?"

"……what?"

"Oh, don't you know, they all said that Nikiforov's original school had better conditions than ours, but he came all the way here just to research chemical weapons in an underground government laboratory. explain……"

"Stop it, Phichit, stop it," Yuuri said quickly, "That's not important, okay? I don't want to hear that! I need you to drive over to pick me up now!"

"But my car broke down," Phichit said, chewing potato chips inarticulately, Yuuri couldn't help but think badly, if Victor is really some kind of psycho killer, wait until my body is found by the police Some regret it. "Why did Nikiforov kidnap you?"

"He wants to travel in a car with me," Yuuri said, couldn't help feeling absurd, Phichit was right, that's the distance between Victor and him, in any third person's eyes, Tens of thousands of galaxies. "He said he was going to Lilya Baranovskaya."

"Lilia...who?"

"Lilia Baranovskaya," Yuuri said, "she's a ballerina, one of the best—legendary, some say. She's like MJ to anyone who's done ballet. But she's twenty Divorced at the end of the century and retired, I mean, like, completely retired, no one heard of her or saw her again, completely disappeared. None of us our age saw it It was an honor to meet her, so..."

"...I kind of understand," Phichit said, "how can I say that looking for her is a treasurehunt in the ballet world? Is that true, but I still haven't figured out what this has to do with you and Nikiforov? "

"Uh, Victor used to learn ballet." He paused, "Me too." He waited helplessly for his roommate's ridicule, but Phichit unexpectedly didn't laugh, but snapped his fingers instead.

"I'll just say it!" he cried. "A man can't be born dancing so well!"

"—what?" Yuuri said, completely confused, "what are you talking about?"

"Oh my dear, you must have been drunk," Phichit replied affectionately, and if he had been around, he would have patted Yuuri on the head twice, as if he were a furry stray dog, "Everyone We all know that when you drink too much, you will dance in public."

"So—" Yuuri suddenly wishes he was deaf, "when you say everyone," he said, with one last hope, "meaning—"

"The whole campus, that's right," Phichit shattered his fantasy mercilessly, "including those idiots in the geology department, everyone talked about your performance on St. Patrick's Day in your sophomore year For years—I didn't know half of those people yesterday, and they all came to see you, man."

"Oh my god, oh my god—" Yuuri moaned, "I'm so ashamed—"

"What? No!" Phichit said, "You're awesome! I mean, you're a totally different zombie dance than those drunks who drink too much! You can do tap and- and all that I can't call The thing with the name! There was a time when those hot girls in the psychology department fought over each other just to dance tango with you! They say you're a totally different person when you drink too much, seriously how do you do that? I Think I'd like to learn some too, you know if you're driving home with two glasses of sherbet and you're pulled over by the cops and asked to walk away, your skills can really come in handy. So why don't you go Be a professional dancer?"

"I—" Yuuri opened his mouth, his mouth was as dry as a desert, he found that until today, it was difficult for him to face up to the fact that he "can no longer be a ballerina", he still couldn't say it out loud, Not to mention explaining why, "I'm not that good." He finally whispered, "Victor is the genius—our teacher Minako keeps saying that if he keeps on dancing, ten years from now when you mention Legend, people will It's his name that will be spoken silently, not Lilia. I—I'm nothing compared to him."

"Oh, well, I'm sure that's objective." Phichit sarcastically said, never shy away from joking about Yuuri's excessive inferiority complex, "Sounds like you admire him a lot, do you know him well?"

"I'm — okay, he lives in the house next to mine and we're in the same ballet studio, so I guess — it's only natural that my parents ask him to babysit me."

"When you say babysitting," Phichit said, "you mean as we ordinary people who can't dance understand, he takes you by the hand and leads you home, then gives you hot milk and chocolate biscuits, And show you cartoons and help you with your homework—like that?"

"Uh—I think so?" Yuuri said, "I mean, I've been seeing me since I was born when his uncle Yakov brought him, but I didn't start dancing until I was five, when We just really started to get to know each other, and then—it’s kind of like what you’re talking about, except instead of cartoons, I’d love to watch the Sesame Street Puppet Show, but that’s okay?”

"Forget it, forget it—" Phichit said in a trance, and suddenly came back to his senses, he called out, "So, you are going to tell me that I have known you for seven years, and you have never thought about it during the three years of high school. Tell me you knew 'that' Victor? The golden boy in town, and still the number one dream girl in high school, Victor used to be your caretaker, why have I never heard of that?" He was full of narrow-mindedness Said, "You know if you let the girls in high school know, they'll jump on you like crazy, and we'll definitely be the coolest boys."

"Exactly," Yuuri said, "I don't want people to think I'm great just because Viktor used to stare at me eating carrot slices - that's pretty low, okay?"

"Oh," Phichit said, "Why do I seem to hear dislike? You're talking like it's a particularly disgraceful thing to have a Prince Charming as your babysitter—do you get along well?" ?"

"No - we were really close, I mean, he might look perfect to you, but if you know him like I do, you'll see - he really was perfect. He was perfect to me Like a particularly respectable big brother until—until—"

"Oh," Phichit said, suddenly serious, "what happened, what did he do to you? Do I need—do I need to call the police? Or call your mother? Or some child protection organization?"

"What? No!" Yuuri said dumbfounded, "Of course not, what were you thinking, he's a good guy, he's the best—but—"

"Oh Yuuri, you have to tell me more," Phichit said, "it's no use talking like that."

"..." Yuuri hesitated, Phichit didn't know anything about that matter, when he appeared in Yuuri's life, Yuuri was already doomed to miss dancing, when you are told "oh poor boy" every day When you are surrounded by eyes, it is very precious to have such a friend who knows nothing about your past. Listening to his tireless nagging hamster every day, rap music and carnival gave Yuuri a short escape from his family and the sympathy and support given by Victor. opportunity for compensation.After that, he even chose this distant university, far away from his past environment, living among a group of people who knew nothing about what he had lost, and if they felt sorry, it would only be because of his taciturnity and Aloof and nothing else, honestly when he felt relieved, did he really have to tell Phichit? "It's a complicated story," he said, "and you promise not to tell anyone."

"Of course not!" Phichit said, "When did I ever give away a secret? Come on honey, you know what you want to say!" Yuuri could almost see his nostrils steaming with excitement.

"Okay," Yuuri said, a voice inside kept telling him this was wrong, that the past should be buried in the past, but another voice was saying, I want people to know- I'm holding back It's been too long, and I'm going crazy if this goes on. "Me and—Me and Victor, we used to have a good relationship, I mean, really good, he's like a brother to me, you know? He's got talent beyond the reach of normal people, and he's— He has a very kind heart."

"If I want to hear the great life of Viktor Nikiforov," Phichit said, "I just have to go home and listen to my mother yelling, my God you people! Ever since I moved to Cangjin town when I was 15, I All I hear every day is 'Victor is awesome!' 'Victor will do this, Victor will do that!' 'Why can't you be as good as Victor?' - God," he complained, "Come on, he's just a regular Man, doesn't everyone think it's super cool to have long hair like a girl and walk like a cloud, and he doesn't even have a hamster of his own!"

"But I think it's super cool." Yuuri said, it's unbelievable that he's actually upset with Phichit's comments, and even today he still finds it annoying that someone doesn't like Viktor, "and He has a poodle, Makachin - he's super cute."

"You sound like one of those senior cheerleaders who goes, 'Oh my god, Victor drinks soda through a straw!'—they want him to take him to homecoming dance, what's up with you?"

"You don't know him." All Yuuri could say was that it could turn into a missionary convention and he (though more than happy to do that) didn't have that much time and Victor could find him running away at any moment, "he really Very good, I really like him."

"A bit 'too' like it, dude," Phichit replied, "but I can understand, with that hair, I'd believe you even if you told me he was just a super tall girl."

"..." Yuuri couldn't make a reasonable response for a while, Phichit accidentally poked his heart, which made him a little dazed - until he was 13 years old, he always thought Victor was a girl, because Victor was a boy There is indeed a kind of androgynous beauty, coupled with the long hair like a waterfall, he makes Yuuri the kind of chaotic beautiful boy often mentioned in Greek mythology, he appears, and then gods and humans begin to fight endlessly.He always thought Victor was a girl, so he did a lot of stupid things - he was deeply fascinated by this "sister", and he was determined to return her kindness like a gentleman, he never with boys his age Play football together after school, always wait for Victor to pick him up at school, and then they go to practice together, Victor's training is more and harder, he always sits outside the dance room of the older children, and waits until the sky It was dark before Victor could finish training and take his hand home—that made all the waiting worthwhile, no matter how boring things were, as long as Victor was there, they would become meaningful.Yuuri's parents are very busy at work, and they often come home late at night, and his older sister, Mari, was obsessed with driving around the country with a certain rock band, and didn't have the energy and patience to cook and check homework for his younger brother at home, so Victor did all of this - he still doesn't know why a, as Phichit said, the golden boy of the town, would be willing to waste so much time at the neighbor's house.He always stays with Yuuri night after night, eating pizza delivery with him, checking spelling mistakes in his homework, and then they watch Sesame Street together, and at ten o'clock Victor takes him into the shower and carefully blow-dries his hair, They ended up talking and sleeping together.He still doesn't know why Victor is willing to do these things, he could go out and have fun, meet more friends, they are all eager to get to know him, and all of them are much more interesting than Katsuki Yuuri.Of course his parents were very grateful to Viktor, they gave him pocket money, but Yuuri didn't think Viktor cared much about that, when his parents died they left him enough money to lie down and spend his life, his uncle Yakov There is no shortage of money.

Victor was so kind to him, and he was so perfect, it was too hard not to like such a person.

"Yuuri, you're in a daze." Phichit's voice came from the microphone, "I thought you said you were short on time."

"Oh!" Yuuri yelled, finding himself lost in thoughts of the past, and the thought only strengthened his conviction that he had to get rid of Victor, because Victor deserved the best things in the world in his body. "Where did you just say that? Oh, Victor and I—yes, we're on good terms, I mean, I think it's not bad on one side, we always have endless topics to talk about, but now that you think about it, he's better than I'm four years older, and when I was still into Sesame Street, a kid his age would have been trying to find someone to buy him a Playboy - he's just a nice guy, and he's interested in whatever I say , as long as I have a little achievement, he will praise me as if I have landed on Mars."

"You are too biased," Phichit said disapprovingly, "You have to admit that you are a person with a very strange brain circuit, maybe he just likes those fairy tales that can be born from those weird brain circuits, maybe he thinks It's funny, let me tell you, when I help babysit my cousin, I want to strangle him - no one can fake it for that long, from when you were five to 15. Anyway, why did you go to high school Are you out of touch at all?"

"Oh, that's stupid," Yuuri said, "Totally my fault."

"what?"

"Yeah," said the chatterbox, and it was much easier to follow, not to mention the things that were revisited over and over again in nightmares, "uh - when I was 14, it was August On the last day, Victor and I -- well, Victor took me out all day, playing video games, watching movies, all that teenage stuff, and we all had a blast. And then, when the day was over, Victor told me he was going to college."

"Oh," said Phichit, "that's too bad, and that's why friendships with too much of an age gap don't end well."

"Yeah, yeah," Yuuri said, "I was totally dumbfounded, I mean, I was 14, you know what a 14-year-old is like, stupid as hell. My first reaction was Angry——Because he could have told me earlier, just tell me directly, but he didn’t say anything for the whole vacation, dragged it until the last day, and took me to play for a day, as if——Then give me a That kind of feeling—like he thinks I'm going to make a fuss if I don't cheer me up first—that kind of hurts my pride, I guess."

"Understandable," Phichit said. "Teenagers hate being treated like teenagers."

"Like I said," Yuuri said, "it's pretty stupid. Anyway - I was pissed, you know? Actually now that I think about it, it wasn't just pissed off, I panicked - because I never thought about Viktor before Will leave, I am used to him being with me, I thought it would always be like that, he once said that other people are very boring, it is better to pass the time with me, I just believe it, but the university - I was Thinking that college is full of cool people, I think he's going to meet a lot of new people and then find out the truth: I'm nothing special."

"But when you go to college yourself, you will find that the losers of the year also went to college, and college is no cooler than high school. The same people just change places and continue to party."

"I don't know where to go." Yuuri muttered, "Anyway—I didn't handle it very well. In fact, Victor didn't do anything wrong, but I was very angry, so I didn't contact him at all. He called Me, I asked my mom to tell him I was going to practice, and he called the dance class, and I asked the teacher to say that, and then Victor switched to texting and emailing—I didn’t reply. Because I was like already It is determined that sooner or later the two of us will stop contacting each other, and it is better to do it in one step than to happen slowly."

"Then you are really in place, until today." Phichit said, "He is also persistent enough to endure until you are 23——I would have killed you and thrown you into the river."

"Could you be serious?" Yuuri said, "Of course he couldn't take it until today okay, and then my first year of high school, the first day of college spring break, he showed up at school and grabbed me from the classroom He got in the car—I mean, literally, like a chick catcher, and he just told me to take me to Lilya Baranovskaya."

".Oh my God," Phichit said, "this sounds eerily familiar, just now you seem to be telling me—"

"That's right, uh-huh, everything that happened today is almost like yesterday." Yuuri said, "Except for the part where I crawled out of the toilet skylight and asked you for help."

"So you guys actually went, looking for that or-"

"Lilya Baranovskaya."

"Whatever," Phichit said indifferently, "found it?"

"No, of course not," Yuuri said, "We didn't drive too far out of town—I was very upset, mostly out of shame, because he came all the way back and said he was going to take me to Lilia because I said years ago that it would be nice to see her in person - and I've been acting like a jerk for the past year, you know, compared to him - but I don't know how to put it, And I'm sure that one day it will happen, we'll still be strangers, sooner or later, so I've been upset, arguing to get out of the car. He just kept trying to cheer me up, the whole day We were the only car on the road, and he just reached out and tickled me, wanted me to talk to him, and—then this drunk driver showed up in his big truck."

"What - oh - my God, he didn't, I mean, y'all-"

"Crash," Yuuri said, mouth dry and throat tight, "Victor was steering like hell, but it hit the end of our car anyway."

Phichit was silent for a while.

"God," he said, sounding completely bewildered, "this is really, really bad, man, really, I'm so sorry. Luckily, nothing too serious happened, right? I mean— —"

"Lucky enough indeed," Yuuri said, "we could have all been killed, so—I think just a leg—was fine."

"." Phichit couldn't say anything, he began to guess the truth, but dared not say it, "Whose leg?" He asked in a low voice.

"Mine," Yuuri said, "It's all broken, it took a whole year of surgery and reconstruction, that's why I got repeated grades, and we're classmates now, so—it's not all bad, right?"

"I—" Phichit said, "My God—but you look perfectly fine walking, I mean—"

"Well, no problem," Yuuri said, "I walk exactly like a normal person, and if I hold back a bit, I can run about the same, but if you want to be a ballerina, that's not enough."

Phichit gave up trying to make a sound, he was shocked by the sudden tragedy.

"—I'm, uh, I'm sorry, man," he said at last, sounding terribly sad, "You danced really well, those moves and steps—the girls couldn't stop talking about it You. Can't you dance those, rumba or something?"

"I don't know—" Yuuri said, and he found that when he actually said it, he didn't feel too much pain inside, because all the blood and tears that could be shed had been shed, and the wound in his heart about dancing had become A big hole, "I can dance that, drink too much, at a party, dance for 15 minutes is no problem, but dancers have to do a lot more than that-no show."

Phichit was quiet again, and Yuuri knew that he was constantly thinking about ways to comfort himself, but none of them sounded good enough, because—completely, saying goodbye to the dream since the age of five in a forced way, This is inconsolable in the eyes of anyone who knows what their dreams are.

"This is the most ups and downs story I've ever heard," Phichit said. "A few minutes ago I thought you were an asshole when you were a teenager, and now I want to set fire to Nikiforov's office - hey, you want me to smash him Windows? I can call Shang Guanghong, and he can use something to relieve stress."

"No—no, please don't," Yuuri said, moved and aching at the same time, "it wasn't his fault. It was my fault, if I wasn't so headstrong and selfish—"

"Hey!" Phichit said, "what's this about? He's driving the car, and he's the one running away like a coward—"

"No he didn't," Yuuri felt a little anxious, "he didn't run - he stayed with me as much as possible after that, he was there during my recovery, he was there during the surgery, he was there with me , very guilty and—" He remembered the first time he woke up from the coma and saw Victor, his beautiful long hair cut short, standing beside Yuuri's hospital bed with red eyes But no tears flowed down. He seemed to want to say something, but he could only make a hoarse breath in his throat. He tried several times but failed. In the end, his uncle came over and pulled him away. When he left He didn't look back when he was about to - his shoulders trembled and Yuuri thought he might finally be crying, but he just couldn't imagine what it was like for Viktor to cry.The next day he reappeared, then the third day, the fourth day -- every day.He doesn't know how tortured it is for Yuuri to be there every day, looking broken.

"Victor did the best he could," he said finally. "That's it."

"But you didn't forgive him, did you?" Phichit said, "Like last time when the design girl broke my computer, she apologized desperately and promised to buy me a new one, but my thesis I can't come back, and I feel in my heart that she has made up for it as much as possible, but some mistakes cannot be easily forgiven—"

"I wasn't—" Yuuri said, "at least not at first. I tried to get along with him like I used to, I even went to see him play at his theater—but—"

"But you still really blame him." Phichit said, "Is it?"

"It's more complicated than that—" Yuuri said, "I—I don't know, I guess seeing him again and again reminds me of what I've lost—I mean, I'm not mad at him, I don't blame him, but as soon as he appeared, it seemed to remind me to remember the past, remember what I lost—that was too heavy for me—" He felt that he could hardly hold the phone , he was on the verge of crying, and that wasn't all he said—the part that hurt him the most, he decided it was better to keep it to himself, was seeing Victor's futile efforts to "redeem" It made him even more heartbroken, and he only hoped that Victor would stop wasting time on him, even just this time, he really hoped that Victor would not be so noble, but he also knew that noble qualities are engraved in Victor's bones just like ballet, To ask him to forget this is to ask him to be someone else.This made Yuuri feel guilty and sad, "I just—I can't tell, but I don't want to stay with him, okay, so please, find a car and come pick me up, I'm in— —"

The microphone in his hand was snatched away, Yuuri turned his head and saw the scene he least wanted to see at the moment—Victor, with a frosty expression on his face, holding up the phone receiver, watching with those deep eyes Yuuri, there is an incomprehensible emotion in his eyes, like sadness, but it is more intense, like indifference, but full of affection, like anger, but is suppressed forcibly - he doesn't know what to do To deal with Victor like this, he could only stand there blankly, looking at him.

But what he thought in his heart was, how much did Victor hear just now?