[Wei Yong] Looking for Lilia

It wasn't until Yuuri's figure disappeared into a mass of flowery skirts and feathers that Victor averted his gaze.Among his peers, Katsuki Yuuri has never been the one to attract attention by his physical strength. When he is surrounded by a large group of people, his shoulders will tensely hunched, and his body will become stiff due to cramping, like this He tends to give people the impression of a sapling in the wind and rain-people often feel that he is shy and innocent, easily hurt and in need of protection.

However that is an illusion.And Viktor, who knows Yuuri best theoretically, is one of the people who has been deluded by this illusion for the longest time.Victor once regarded Yuuri as a flower bud that needs to be carefully cared for. He is sensitive and kind, affectionate and upright, but the world is too complicated and complicated. If he loses his protection and is directly exposed to it, his soul will easily die. damaged and corroded.Viktor sees himself as a protector, a guide, even a fortress if necessary—but it never occurs to him that maybe he and the world are wrong about Yuuri Katsuki.

"So—" Chris drawled, "what's the story this time?"

"What 'what story'?" Victor asked rhetorically.

Chris shrugged. He started to use a small knife to cut the lemon he found behind the counter. The orange fruit was rolled all over the table with the flat of the knife. "You know what," he said casually, Victor Watching him grab the lemon and poke the point of the knife into the peel, the sour smell splashes out with the juice, "The story of 'the great Victor and how he fell in love' Well, what's wrong, you think I'm here," he said. Pointing at the corners of his eyes with a knife, "Is this pair of shiny things fluorescent watches? Who is he, and why did you fall in love with him?"

Victor raised an eyebrow. He looked at Chris calmly, waiting for further explanation. Chris cut the lemon into small pieces, looked up at his expression, and gave a "tsk" impatiently.

"Because he's one," he paused, "he's kind of... you know, he has trouble walking, his left leg is shorter than his right. Yes, I'm very observant." Noticing Victor's surprise , he added.

"Very few people can see that," Victor said, a little surprised - but it's not unreasonable, after all, Chris works with hundreds of dancers every day, and gestures and steps occupy a large part of his attention , "But, so what?"

"'So what'?" Chris imitated him, "What kind of attitude! Am I your pregnant ex-girlfriend Professor Victor? Here." He put a glass of spirits heavily on the bar in front of Victor .

Victor pushed his glass back a little. "If you're okay with that," he said, "I'd rather keep myself a little sane."

Chris looked a little disappointed. "I don't like this prudish version of you," he declared. "Now tell me about you and your children. Where did you meet?"

"You're unbelievable," Victor said, half sarcastic, half admiring. "Why are you so interested?"

"Why would I—listen to yourself!" Chris scolded, "I'm your buddy, your number one wingman, your BFF! If I ever find out you're falling for someone who's totally not your type Now, of course I'm obliged to ask." He pushed the glass back in front of Victor again, "Tell me, you know what you want to say-what's so special about him? I mean," he lowered his body, "Except for the fact that he's a virgin in his 20s—god I didn't know such a creature existed, and now, it's the 21st century!"

"Believe it or not," Viktor said, feeling a little offended, despite knowing that Chris was totally unintentional—Yuuri is the kind of guy who at first glance is really ordinary, but when he gets along with him, he shines brightly. "I thought so when I first met you."

"You really should think so," Chris replied, "I'm one in a million, no, one in a million, honey." He said, taking a bite of a lemon, tilting his head back and pouring the spirits in his glass Down, then put down the glass and let out a happy shout.

Victor looked at him, feeling a little helpless and funny—it was undeniable that Chris would talk nonsense sometimes, but when talking to him, Victor felt his tense nerves loosen a little.His index finger traced a circle on the rim of his glass.

"Oh don't hide it!" Chris said, "You have to give me a story today - when I see two people with a relationship standing together and pretending to be friends, I know it right away, you two The smell of adultery on his body can be smelled across two hot dog stands, what's the matter, he will definitely not be the first student who wants to sleep with you, what's so special about him?"

"It's definitely not the first..." Victor muttered, "In your eyes, I'm just a hooligan who lures students with A+?"

"If you were my professor when I was in college," Chris said, "sleep with me and give me an E-."

"If I were your professor, I'd give you an E- if I didn't sleep with you."

Chris laughed. "Asshole," he muttered, "don't try to change the subject."

"I didn't even know we had a conversation." Victor said dryly, and Chris waved his hand indifferently.

"The more you play this the more I want to know," he said, "do you know how to make me stop asking?—tell me the truth, all. What do you see in him?" His Turning his head, Yuuri is sitting at the long table, clumsily holding a handful of playing cards that are too many for him, with red stripes painted on his face that only a loser can have, and they tend to increase— —He was obviously about to lose this one too.Chris turned his head, looking like he was saying "Just him?", and Viktor stared at Yuuri, who was fidgeting with a dancing girl around his arm, the corners of his mouth twitching, and his expression softened.

"Ouch, oh, I can't stand it anymore, your expression is disgusting." Chris said, "Are you obsessed? Are you serious? You—what's wrong with you?"

"You're talking like I shouldn't be in love with anyone," Victor said. "Is that surprising to you?"

"You can fall in love with anyone, my friend," Chris said, "but I always just assume it's a hot supermodel, or a princess royal, or a lawyer with a swimmer's body, you know?"

"Sounds like you have a very specific goal, do you know someone you want to introduce me to?"

"I won't tell you anything." Chris said, "And, you've reached the point of saying 'love' now? Do you remember that female reporter, Eliza or something, no matter how hard she tried? I didn't pry half a word of love out of your mouth, are you—are you terminally ill?"

Victor smirked at him. "No," he said, "but if you can refrain from mentioning any of my exes in front of Yuuri... I owe you a favor."

"I'm going to advance the favor right now," Chris said quickly, handing him a slice of lemon, "drink."

His expression was unquestionable, Victor looked at him, then at the wine glass and the lemon - he took a deep breath and took the fruit slice.

"I wish you health." He said, drank the spirits, and Chris slapped the table excitedly and yelled.

"This is the Victor I know!" he said, taking a drink himself, tears welling up in his eyes from the double stimulus of lemon juice and spirits, blowing his nose and filling two empty wine glasses up.

"So what's the matter," he said, "you don't want him to know about your love history? Are you serious? You're serious, but he's playing hardtoget?" Lived a little sore forehead.

"No, no one's playing anything," he said, looking at Chris and realizing there was no way he'd get away without saying something. "Okay, I'll admit it, okay? Feelings - more than 'feelings', but I don't want to be with him so stop talking to him - please."

"Wow." Chris said quietly, "I mean-wow." He raised his glass and touched Victor's glass on the table, and the two drank in silence, the spicy liquid running down their tongues All the way down, everywhere you go is full of melancholy flames.Viktor takes another look at Yuuri, who is drinking an orange drink with red stripes all over his face - he's having a good time.

Victor looked at him for a while, and Kristi refilled two wine glasses countless times.

"One thing I don't understand," Chris said, sounding a little drunk, "why aren't you going to be with him?"

"It's a long story," Victor says, looking away from Yuuri. "You don't want to hear it."

"I actually really want to hear it," Chris said, "Please entertain me."

"It's very simple," Victor said, "If two people want to be together, it doesn't matter what one person says."

Chris showed a confused expression, "You mean, he, uh, he... doesn't he like you?" He widened his eyes, as if frightened by his own words, "You mean, you like him , doesn't he like you? Does he not like you? He doesn't..."

"I have to interrupt you," Victor said calmly, "It's not that it's not fun to listen to you repeating meaningless sentences like a repeater - if you speak louder, there may be a few people on the Ferris wheel listening to the whole carnival not see."

Chris looked around, the guests at the table closest to them were enjoying a lap dance of a girl wearing a colorful feather skirt, obviously had no time to pay attention to them, he turned back relieved, and at the same time, his mind also turned around .

"That's impossible," he said firmly. "It's absolutely, definitively, utterly impossible. Drink—drink clean."

Victor ignored his request. If it was an ordinary Friday, he and Chris could keep pouring down the spirits in this small wine glass for countless rounds, until one of them poured it into the cup. The audience - usually Chris - but he wasn't in the same mood today. "It's true," he said, "I—our relationship is complicated."

"Let me make it easier for you," Chris said. "Where did you guys meet?"

Victor thought for a while, "School."

"It's classic, how did it happen, his thesis needs to be postponed, so he waited for you at the office door? He begged hard, you think he is very cute? — Wait a minute, this is the content of the porn film I watched yesterday."

"It's time for you to find someone," Victor said, "We didn't meet in college."

"Wow - high school? Interesting and interesting, you help him make up lessons?"

"No." Victor said, "To be precise, we didn't meet for the first time at school, but at his home, but we didn't really get to know each other until he was in elementary school. His sister didn't want to send him off, so... ...what?" He smiled, "You look surprised."

Chris looked at Victor blankly as if biting his own tongue. "Elementary school? Did I hear you right? Primary school? How old are you older than him?"

"Four years old, since I was ten years old." Victor replied, thinking of Yuuri who was held by Mrs. Katsuki and knocked on the door of his house the day before school started, everything was as clear as if it happened yesterday, "Our Yuuri will be the first one tomorrow I go to school one day," explained Mrs. Katsuki. She was a very kind woman, always smiling, and she smelled delicious—it smelled like apple pie, and she often gave it to Yakov and Victor. He said, "It's the same school as Xiao Wei, and the child's father and I both have to work tomorrow, so please Yakov, can you drop him off to school, please? Please, just this day." But it turns out that there is more than that. It's only been a day, and Victor still remembers the little boy in the yellow top with the teddy bear on his chest, his mother smelling like apple pie and he smelling like milk candy.His little hands were chubby, and his fingers were so soft that they would break if he pinched them lightly.Yakov concluded that it was a calcium deficiency. He often stewed the traditional Russian big bone soup and forced Yuuri to drink it. Yuuri drank every drop, but his little hands were still limp. He didn’t look like Yakov until he graduated from elementary school. Believed to be hardened.

Maybe it was from then on that Katsuki Yuuri became a little thing that needed Victor's protection.Because how small and soft was the little hand that held Victor's!It's something that needs to be handled with extreme care and care.

He was so caught up in the memory that he didn't notice that the glass was filled again by Chris.

"Scary," Chris muttered, "scary, you're telling me you guys have known each other for almost 18 years? 18 years? My God - when did you find yourself, I mean..."

"My time," Victor said, "was some kind of themed party...he couldn't learn to tie a tie, and when I tied it for him, he was so close that it confused me...before that My feelings for him are very complicated, like feathers flying all over the sky, my world is full of him, we go to school together, leave school together, learn to dance together, we spend more than ten hours a day together, I care about his feelings , his mood, I am nostalgic for the time with him, but I don't think there is anything wrong, because I am also lonely, I don't have a friend who is closer than him, and I believe there will be no more in the future-we It's been like this for eight years, so it's a thing I'm used to caring about him. But that day...everything changed from that day on."

He can still think of that day, it was the end of a cool spring, and his heart was full of impetuosity-it was also that day, he participated in the audition for that famous dance school, everything looked perfect, if nothing happened, he He can enter school in autumn, and like all future dancers, he will start his extraordinary artistic path. However, the first thing that comes to his mind is: if he leaves his hometown, he and Yuuri will part ways early, and He's not ready yet.It's capricious and irrational, but it makes him very depressed all day - he doesn't understand what's wrong with him, he's destined to go this way, if not then, a year It will happen later, and Yuuri, Yuuri and him are destined to be separated, they will separate, they will each meet new people, new friends, but as depicted in the novel, they will always meet again.He doesn't understand why he feels so bad, and that feeling doubles when he learns that Yuuri is going to a party with a girl.He always jokes that Yuuri is slow, but now that I think about it, Viktor Nikiforov is also very slow, a person who has only just realized that he is in love, how can he not be slow?

He still remembers making fun of Yuuri for what he was wearing and his tie, which Yuuri wore awkwardly like a bear, and he remembers the feeling of the rough silk brushing against his palm as he walked over and pulled the tie out of Yuuri's hand, It was a tie of very tasteless and rough material, even with a little fuzz on the surface; but the only thing he couldn't remember was the hands he slapped away-were they as soft as they were when he was a child?Or, since then, or earlier, they have shed the tenderness of a child and grown into the hard prototype of the man today?Who can tell?He only knew that at that time his heart was flustered like a torrential rain, but he still had to pretend to be calm.

He put on a tie for Yuuri, his hands flipped the two ends of the tie mechanically, but his eyes were fixed on the tip of the boy's nose and lips, his heart was beating like a drum, he just wanted to gently, gently touch the tip of his chubby nose A kiss—he was terrified of himself.

"Me," Victor said, "and he was a 14-year-old kid—that was horrible, I thought... I thought there was something wrong with me, you know? Feeling? I thought I was sick. It was him, it was him!"

"Before this we were -- best friends, or brothers, and it was kind of like... like when you're a toddler, the highest expression of your affection is family, so he was My younger brother; but when you grow up a little bit, you will find that the 'brother' can no longer carry that kind of emotion, friendship is the highest for teenagers, so he has become my best friend; but if you continue to grow Big, then 'friends' are still unsatisfying. So I found myself falling in love with him." He really needs a drink now, it's a secret buried in his heart that he never shared with anyone, his repressed For too long, they have been his heaviest secrets, shackled and chained since the day he was born, without a single day of freedom.Chris looked completely confused, as if he didn't understand, Victor explained: "It's like if there is a very smart child who gets a full score of five in the exam, then he can only get five in the exam, but when he goes to middle school , the full score is [-], then he will take the test of [-], and when he enters high school, the full score will be [-], so he will take the test of [-], whether it is five points, ten points, or even one hundred points. It's just an artificially defined upper limit, but in fact..."

"Actually, he might be able to score ten thousand points." He said softly, shaking the wine glass slightly, the golden brown liquid shook, "ten thousand points can fill up five points, ten thousand points, one hundred points, but never more than that .”

"You want to know what I see in him, don't you?" He paused, a dreamy tenderness and a dead silence in his voice.

"He's a part of my soul," he said softly. "There's a part of me—the whole me that only he can see. That's what I see."

Neither of the friends spoke, they sat quietly for a while, and finally Chris raised his glass.

"For love," he said.

"For love." Victor repeated in a low voice, "for love."