Raindrops and... Strudel?

Chapter 2

Happy birthday, my dear Surka! I hope this day is even half as lovely as you! ♥

~~~

Sometimes, when they took breaks together, if they were especially busy, Beka brought out some of his own bakery business paperwork while Yuri worked on his for the company. On one such occasion, Yuri had a revelation. A big revelation.

It's brought about by nothing particularly special. Yuri was typing away on his laptop, placed on the side of the table farthest from where their drinks sat; Beka was reading and signing some physical papers about something or other for The Otabakery; all was well. It was peaceful, as their time together so often was. Then, Beka sighed.

"What is it?" Yuri looked up, and raised his eyebrows as Otabek let his head rest on the tabletop, not as dramatically as Yuri occasionally did, the descent slowed in anticipation of the pain of the impact (wimp), but in an emphatic gesture out of character for Beka to perform. Yuri wasn't sure whether to be inquisitive about what had caused Beka to do such a thing, or concerned that his friend had malfunctioned.

"Nothing," Beka sighed as he sat back up, running a weary hand over his face. "I just realized that I screwed up the profit margin spreadsheets for this month. It'll take forever to fix."

Yuri hummed sympathetically, "Did you already send them out?"

A nod.

Yuri winced.

Beka flopped back onto the table.

Yuri laughed, leaning over their work to push at his shoulder until he reemerged, and then laughed again at the look of mild irritation on his face.

"I was trying to die," he said, flatly, "rude of you to interrupt me. Can't a man die a peaceful death without being summoned from beyond the grave?"

"Not in this country," Yuri chirped, and Beka joined in his laughter, shaking his head in some, muddled version of agreement.

"What did you do?" Yuri asked, after a moment, pulling the printed spreadsheets towards him, across the table. "Maybe it won't be a big fix--" He stopped, having found the mistake. It was right there, in the top line, something so glaringly obvious that Yuri both wasn't sure how Beka could've possibly missed it, and yet knew exactly how it had happened.

"Oh, Beka," Yuri said, looking at him with sad eyes. "You misspelled your own name."

He blinked. Eyebrows furrowed. The papers were pulled back across the table to be reexamined. "Um, no?" He asked, very much confused. "My name's fine."

"No it's not," Yuri replied, pointing, upside down, at the offending word. "You wrote 'Otabek,' like, 'Otabakery.'"

"And that's wrong because...?"

"Because your name is Beka?"

"My name is Otabek. Beka is a nickname," a pause, "you didn't know that?"

"How was I supposed to?" Yuri asked, flabbergasted, "Your name tag says Beka, and it's not like people call you anything else?"

Otabek shrugged, "I just figured you knew. It never even occurred to me that you might not have heard it. Leo calls me that all the time."

Yuri stared blankly at him, before crossing his arms and reclining in his chair with a huff.

"What?" Otabek asked, sounding vaguely amused.

"Nothing," Yuri replied, "I just thought that, after we've been friends for a month, I'd be important enough to know your real name." He sniffed, offended, and Otabek laughed. By God, did Yuri love that sound.