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"I think we have to buy new curtains," Yuuri says, distractedly, on a beautiful Saturday morning.
Somehow, his boyfriends react as if he'd just slapped them. Victor stops playing with Makkachin to give him a betrayed look, and Yuri takes one of the cups of coffee he's just finished making and holds it over the sink threateningly, entire body tense.
"The fuck did you just say?" he hisses.
"We already have curtains, Yuuri!" Victor replies, squeezing the poor dog to his chest.
"Yes, and they're falling to pieces," Yuuri reminds him. They really are. They look older than the flat itself, too, and Victor has never actually explained where they came from —Yuuri's starting to believe that he just doesn't know—. "Besides, we don't even have blinds!"
"What? Blinds?" Victor blinks.
Yuuri opens his mouth, snaps it shut again, and turns to look at Yuri. The truth is, he's frantically going through his memories, trying to find a single instance in which he's seen blinds in anyone's windows —not that he notices those things; just because he's a normal, sensible human being who likes living in human conditions doesn't mean he's particularly attracted to decor, unlike what his boyfriends seem to think—, and he's not finding any.
"Uh, don't you... have blinds in Russia?"
Yuri, comfortingly enough, only rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, we do, Katsudon. Victor just sucks."
"Hey!"
"Well, then we need blinds too," Yuuri says, trying to sound soothing and reasonable. "They block out the Sun-"
"This is Russia! We don't fucking have that!"
"Yes, Yura," Yuuri replies, patiently. "I know that. But blinds are also for privacy, and reducing noise, and thermal isolation- which I definitely need, because this country is a frozen wasteland and you somehow expect me to survive here with the help of a single ratty blanket-" He interrupts himself, takes the pen from the magnetic notepad on the fridge. "That's right, we need more blankets too," he hums, making note of it and ignoring his boyfriends' matching groans. "My point is, we need to go on an Ikea trip."
"You have Ikeas in Japan?" Victor asks, baffled, because that's their to-go question whenever Yuuri exhibits any knowledge that Japanese people apparently aren't allowed to have.
"Why do I have to go?" Yuri complains at the same time. "I don't even live here!"
"Not many. But again, Detroit," Yuuri tells Victor —although, to be fair, the only Ikea in Michigan was half an hour away and Yuuri never actually went, thank goodness—. And then, to Yuri, "Yet. And of course you're coming."
He taps the pen on the kitchen counter for a moment, trying to think of what else they need. Curtains, blinds, blankets... Ah, right, more bathroom towels, probably, since Yuri is unoficially living here too and that's one thing he hasn't bothered to bring. And possibly another table lamp; the one Makkachin managed to kick off the nightstand doesn't really work anymore- And now that Yuuri thinks about it, do Ikeas have dog toys? Uh, probably not, but-
"Can't we at least go to a Russian place?" Yuri sighs, setting a cup of coffee beside Yuuri's notepad.
Yuuri knows he must be smiling, but Yuri doesn't call him out of it, instead choosing to knock back the coffee that Yuuri had thought was for Victor. And really, that assumption was so innocent of him.
"Do either of you know any Russian shops that sell furniture?" he asks.
Victor clears his throat and scratches Makkachin behind the ears, while Yuri sullenly whips out his phone.
"I can google it," he grumbles.
"No, thank you, Yura," Yuuri grins, shaking his head. "I'd like at least one of us not to be terribly lost in the daunting world of furniture shopping. Ikea it is."
Yuuri is regretting everything.
Back in Hasetsu, he used to babysit his neighbours' children sometimes, and a few times he'd taken them to the mall in Saga and let them go wild —but not too wild—. And he's had some experience with Yuuko and Takeshi's triplets, as well. But this? This is worse. ...Well, alright. Maybe not worse than the triplets, but not by much. Yuuri's really starting to think he should've had more practice before trying to live this particular experience.
"Did you know this is the second biggest Ikea in Russia?" Victor says, happily letting Yuuri lead them to the appropiate corridor.
"No, Vitya," Yuuri replies. "Thank you."
He can't help but think that it's ironic Victor knows that, when he hasn't stepped in a furnite shop even once in his life. He didn't even buy groceries before Yuuri moved in. But he keeps his thoughts to himself, because it's not really Victor's fault that he is —in Yuri's words— a human disaster, or that Yuuri actually hates going shopping. Besides, he is the one carrying the shopping cart.
"Yeah, okay, this place isn't so great," Yuri huffs. "But Mega shopping centers are awesome. They have cat stuff."
"Do they?" Yuuri replies, distractedly, ticking blankets off his list. "That's great, Yurochka."
"And we're literally in Mega Dybenko right now," Yuri adds, with all the subtletly of a hammer to the face. "Katsudon. Listen. We're in an Ikea, inside Mega Dybenko. We only have to get out of here to go look for cat stuff."
"Oh, but Yura, there was a cat clock in the last corridor we were in!" Victor says.
Yuri turns on his heels to look at Yuuri, the closest to pleading that he can get. Yes, there was indeed a cat clock. And Yuuri has also seen cat curtains, cat pillows, and a cat-shaped lava lamp. He's not mentioning any of those.
"It's alright by me, Yura," he smiles. "But we all live there."
Yuri, for once, doesn't insist that he doesn't —as he usually does, despite all evidence to the contrary—. He stares at Victor, who only raises his hands in surrender and beams.
"But we've got to buy dog stuff too! Makkachin could feel unloved!"
There's a moment in which Yuri's visibly swallowing back whatever insult he was going to lodge at Victor. Yuuri suspects it'd be rude to laugh, so he turns his head towards the curtains exposition and grins to himself.
"I'll be here with the curtains," he says, because he's not entirely heartless, and watches them scatter in opposite directions.
Now, on the curtains...
An hour later, they have everything they needed —except for the blinds— and a lot more than they didn't mean to buy at all, including Yuri's cat clock and Victor's cushions with dogs in rockstair hair and sunglasses.
They might not be the classiest decorations in the world, but honestly, Yuuri likes them. He likes even more the idea that their flat is finally going to start feeling like an actual home, obviously representative of its inhabitants' personalities, so unlike the blank, unloved-looking place Yuuri had first found himself in.
"Yuuri, this place is so boring," Victor sighs.
He and Yuri have been enganged in a selfie marathon for the last fifteen minutes. Yuuri was too busy playing the grown-up to do more than sneaking peeks from time to time, and for what little he's seen, he thinks he should be terrified of opening his Instagram to see the photos he's been tagged in.
And his supposedly adult boyfriends are wearing matching pink gliterry antlers. The worst part is, Yuuri has no idea of how they got those or when.
"I- Uh- Yes, it is," he finally tries, because well, it's the truth.
"Great!" Yuri groans. "So we're all bored. Fucking awesome. Can we go now?"
"We need blinds," Yuuri reminds him. He'd like to leave as soon as possible, too, but well... adult responsabilities. Which he's terrible at, but somehow his endurance for them increases when he faces people that happen to be even worse at them than he is. "Phichit always says Ikea's meatballs are famous," he says. "We can go take a break, but we need to buy a drawer organizer first." He gives Victor a reproachful gaze. "We have a cutlery orgy in there."
Yuri makes a sound like a cow dying, and Yuuri is honestly concerned for a moment before he realizes Yuri was just startled into choking.
"Yuuri!" Victor says, in what he probably thinks is a censuring tone. But he's grinning.
"What?" Yuuri replies, defensively. "It's just an expression."
"Not one I've ever heard, solnyshko," Victor insists. The fake antlers are sliding down the side of his head, giving him less of an air of very fashionable reindeer and more of a drunk man in a stag party one. "And I don't think Yura has, either," he adds, gesturing at a the man in question, who is currently on his knees in the middle of an Ikea corridor and laughing himself to death.
And while Yuri's laughter is always very welcome, Yuuri doubts what he's said is that funny. It's probably histeria from being here for so long.
"Come on, Yura," he says, gentle, as he helps him up. "We'll eat first, what about that? And then we only have to buy the- the-"
A woman carrying the biggest sword Yuuri has ever seen —and he's been in the Japanese Sword Museum— walks by them. From the corner of his eye, he can see Yura lighting up, and he doesn't remember the last time he prayed or if he ever did, but he can't imagine a better moment to start than this one.
"Whoops," Victor mumbles, and shrugs at him with an apologetic smile. Yuuri leans into his chest, suddenly feeling faint. "That was a zweihander."
"That was a motherfucking huge sword," Yura corrects him, eyes bright.
Yuuri rubs his temples and sighs. Victor lets him go without question, looking only amused as Yuuri approaches the Ikea worker, who is currently setting the sword on a podium, and politely taps her shoulder. She tilts her head in his direction, but keeps most of her attention on the sword —understandably so—.
"Excuse me," Yuuri says, in bumbling Russian. He can tell his expression is clear enough, though, not to be misunderstood. "Why do you have a sword in a goddamned Ikea?"
What Yuuri really meant to say was something along the lines of What's even Russia or What's wrong with you guys, but he's not about to be rude to someone who's just doing her job.
"Sorry, sir, it's for an exposition," the woman replies, smiling. Or at least, that's what Yuuri infers she's said.
"So we can't buy it?" he asks, weakly.
She shakes her head. Yuuri can suddenly breathe a lot easier. He bows her head at her, faint with relief, and goes back to his boyfriends, one of which is beaming and the other of which is pouting, of all things.
"Spoilsport," Yuri hisses, folding his arms over his chest like a petulant toddler. "Now I'll have to look it up in fucking Amazon."
"Are you crying, my Yuuri?" Victor asks, amused.
He pulls Yuuri to his side, affectionately patting his head when Yuuri buries his face in his shoulder.
"Not yet," Yuuri sighs.
"What the fuck. What."
"There are so many kinds! Did you know there were so many kinds, Yura?"
Yuuri is willing to bet Yura didn't. He didn't, either. There were already blinds in the rooms Yuuri grew up in, and as for Detroit, they were built directly into the windows, a fact for which Yuuri had never been truly grateful for until this second.
The blinds selection in this place really is frightening, and they have to install them by themselves too, somehow. If it weren't for Yuuri's strong convinction that windows need blinds —and the fact that he's been very insistent on that point in front of his boyfriends, too much to back down now—, he would've already hightailed out of the Ikea with only a modicum of shame. But he's made his bed and he's got to lie in it, so Yuuri takes in a deep breath and stares at the little signs that presumably explain what in the world he's looking at.
"Uhm." Right. He doesn't know enough Russian for this. "Vitya, read this one for me, would you?"
"Persian, vinyl," Victor translates, sounding puzzled. "Solnyshko, I have no idea of what that means."
Neither does Yuuri, actually, but he's not about to admit that.
"And that one?"
"Venetian, wood," Yuri replies. He grips Yuuri's arm and whispers, "Katsudon, what the fuck. Seriously."
"Don't worry, Yura," Yuuri says, as soothingly as he can when he himself is uncomfortably close to tears. "Everything is under control. We'll figure this out."
They don't.
And half an hour later, still nothing is under control. It takes just one more Roman, fabric by a baffled Victor for Yuuri to break, and the only reason he doesn't crumple on the floor and starts screaming, possibly to never stop, is that he still has a certain amount of public propriety and composure, thank you very much.
"I think we're done here," he mumbles, hiding his face in his hands.
"But- the blinds," Yuri says, a little helplessly.
Yuuri can't tell if Yura has suddenly become a rabid defensor of blinds or if he just doesn't like the idea of having wasted so much time for nothing. He can probably guess, though.
"Are you alright, Yuuri?" Victor asks, frowning.
"Yes, yes," Yuuri sighs. "But this is obviously impossible, and we don't need blinds that badly. Frankly, I just want to go home already."
Victor and Yura exchange a rare gaze of understanding and mutual pigheadedness. The moment of connection is gone as soon as it came, though, and Yuri punches Victor's arm with a strength he never uses on Yuuri.
"I told you we should've gone for the meatballs first! There's no way to fucking misunderstand meatballs!"
"Yura, you were the one who insisted on 'getting this shit out of the way first'!"
"Shut the fuck up, old man, you-"
"I'll be over there if you need me," Yuuri interrupts, drawing from his reserves of patience and good will to prevent himself from rolling his eyes. "At the checkout. Come find me when you're done and we can get those meatballs."
"No," Yura hisses, pulling him back. "Like hell you will. We're not getting out of here without those fucking blinds."
"Don't worry, solnyshko," Victor nods, all seriousness. "We'll take care of it."
It's vicious.
Yuuri didn't think blinds shopping could be vicious before, but he's being proved wrong. Victor and Yura enlist the help of a clerk —who just didn't know what was coming onto him, the poor man—, and they all start arguing in rapid Russian, pointing at several blinds that to be honest, look entirely the same to Yuuri. Yura gets right up into the clerk's space and actually growls at him more than once, and Victor beams and bats his eyelashes more than probably necessary and is his charming persona in general, but Yuuri doesn't intervene because- well, he's tired.
Besides, they're his boyfriends, not his children or his pets or- or whatever the clerk must be thinking, to keep sending him those pleading glances his way.
And finally, to Yuuri's total lack of surprise —it's not the first time he's witnessed how well Victor and Yura work together if they put themselves to it—, they find The Blinds. Or, well, some blinds, at least. Yuuri doesn't really care at this point.
"See?" Yuri spits out, as aggresive as always whenever he does something sweet. He holds the chosen blinds in his arms and pushes them towards Yuuri, like an offering. "Your blinds. Can we fucking go eat now or what?"
Victor scowls and takes the blinds delicately from Yura's arms, grinning at Yuuri.
"Our friend Aleksey will assemble them, too," he says. And then, warmly, "You don't have to worry about anything, my Yuuri."
"Uhm, thanks," Yuuri tells the clerk —Aleksey, apparently—, who's looking about as uncomfortable as Yuuri feels.
Victor dumps the blinds in the shopping cart, radiating pride. He waves at the clerk, takes Yuuri's hand, and pushes him and the cart towards the checkout, Yuri following them and grumbling all the way.
Yuuri suspects he's beaming, but he wouldn't stop even if he could.
"Well, about fucking time," Yuri huffs, while the checkout clerk scans their items. "I was getting fucking sick of your sad puppy face."
"What Yura means," Victor says, after gently elbowing him in the side —and nearly doubling over by the strength of Yuri's answering punch—, "is that we're both happy when you're happy." And then, because he's Victor, he adds with the utmost seriousness, "My Yuuri, my heart breaks into a hundred- no, a million pieces every time you're not completely ecstatic. You have to be ecstatic! You deserve it! And I can't go on until-"
"Sad puppy face," Yuri repeats, cutting him off. "Sad, disappointed, ashamed puppy face."
"I didn't know I was making that face," Yuuri says, shrugging.
He would like to say he didn't know he had that face, but it is in fact something that has been pointed out to him more than one. Phichit calls it The Face of Power, and insists on Yuuri not using it for evil about as many times as he makes him misuse it. Mari usually holds back on the teasing when it's directed at her —even though teasing is her big sister prerogative—. It even managed to convince Chris to keep his pants on once, while he was drunk and the song Sexy and I Know It was playing, something for which Yuuri's almost certain he should get some sort of award for.
"Of course you wouldn't fucking know," Yuri replies, somehow looking even more annoyed.
"My Yuuri is not that manipulative, Yura," Victor chides him, even though Yuuri not being completely innocent in this matter can't be news to him. "And he knows I'd give him anything he asked for anyway."
"Well, we have everything now!" Yuuri loudly interrupts, before they can start arguing —he's already learned to smell fights from a mile away, with these two—. "Meatballs time!"
That's not a sentence he ever thought he'd utter, but well, if it works.
"Ugh, home, fucking finally!"
Yuri falls face-first on the sofa —displacing the glittery antlers that are still on his head—, and Victor and Yuuri glance at each other and very carefully don't mention how he's called their flat home. It's possible they're a bit —a lot— giggly, but Yuri's not looking anyway, so it's alright.
Victor quietly steps around the sofa to go hang the cat clock on the wall, because he's actually tall enough not to need a ladder.
"If we're lucky, we won't have to go furniture shopping ever again," Yuuri replies, grinning.
And then he grins even wider when he realizes that, if Yuri's semi-permanent stay becomes permanent, they probably will have to make some arrangements. He doesn't think he'd mind going shopping, in that case.
"What? But Yuuri, we can still go to Ikea, right?" Victor pipes up, handing the dog cushions over to Yuuri so he can put them on their rightful place on the sofa —because let's be honest, Yuri would almost definitely bite Victor if he dared to do it himself—. "The meatballs were great!"
"They were alright," Yuri agrees, from where he's smushed his face into the new cushions. That's pretty much a glowing review, coming from him.
Yuuri only hums in response and lifts Yura's legs to put them on his lap, so he can sit on the sofa. Almost immediately, he can feel Victor's arms wrapping around his shoulders from behind, Victor's cheek pressing against his. Makkachin, as if summoned, jumps on the sofa as well and curls on Yuri's back.
It's a good life.