Crimson Skates (Yuri on Ice × Tokyo Ghoul)

5. CCG

[EDITED JAN 2, 2019]

Yuri muttered something to himself as he twirled around a pencil in his hand, eyes focused on the small yellow legal pad in front of him. A few things were jotted down on it in a small little grocery list, but he seemed to be at a loss for what else to put on there.

"What else do we need, Mom?" Yuri's mom strode over and took the list from Yuri's hands, pushing her glasses up her nose. She scanned it for a bit before handing it back to him, clearing her throat.

"Noodles..." she paused and waited for her son to scribble down the word. "Pork...celery...sauce ingredients...and granola bars. We ran out a week ago. I found one on the floor earlier, do you know what that was about?"

Yuri finished jotting down the stuff on the list and looked up at his mom, remembering when Viktor smacked it from his hand and sent it flying last week. His gaze shot over to Viktor for a split second, a wry smile on his face, before he shook his head.

"Nope. It was probably Mari. You know how much she likes those granola bars."

His mom seemed convinced. "It probably was." She grumbled slightly and reached into her pocket, handing Yuri a shiny plastic credit card to pay for the list of items. Yuri gingery took it from his mother's grasp and pocketed it, along with the list, before shrugging his jacket over his shoulders - it was still hard for him to move due to the shoulder pain. Viktor rushed over and helped him put the jacket on, before Yuri began to leave to go to the nearby grocer's.

Viktor stopped him, and Yuri glanced up at him with concern.

"Huh? What's wrong?

"I'm going with you. I don't want you getting hurt, after all." He flashed a smile, which made Yuri's cheeks began to heat up. The embarrassed boy hid his face for a moment, but it didn't get past Viktor.

The cold air bombarded his body as he exited the shop and he shivered, burying his hands into the pockets of his denim jeans for any hope of warmth.

"Where is it...?" Yuri muttered quietly to himself, taking a sharp left turn as he tried to remember the route in his head. His soft eyes were trained on his feet as he took small steps forward, deterring slightly to the left to avoid smacking into a telephone pole.

"Yuri, are you sure you're okay with this?"

Yuri's eyes darted back up so see a guilty expression on Viktor's face.

"Okay with what?"

"You know...me..."

"Of course. Viktor, if I wasn't fine with it, I would've reported you to the CCG a long time ago."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Viktor said with a chuckle, his hand covering his lips as they turned up into a smile. It warmed Yuri's heart in the bitter autumn cold.

The leaves scattered across the cobblestone crunched quietly under his sneakers as he stepped on them, silently admiring their beautiful palette of crimson and fiery orange. Viktor walked alongside him, blue eyes darting around Hasetsu's empty streets. It looked absolutely stunning at this time of year.

The shop slowly came into view and Yuri pushed open the wood-paneled doors, hearing the nice melody of a bell chiming overhead. A teenage girl sat at the register, glancing up from her phone at the couple as they passed by before returning to whatever was so interesting, blonde curls tumbling over her face and eyes as she stared down at the screen. Yuri scoured the isles for what he needed, glancing down at the list in his hand filled with ingredients he would need to buy. Viktor wrinkled his nose as they passed by numerous foods and ingredients, the hideous aromas of the human foods entering his nostrils. Yuri looked up at him before giggling quietly to himself.

"To be fair, Yuri, I don't think you very much enjoy the scent of rotten flesh, so cut me some slack," Viktor sharply whispered to him, but it didn't stop him from quietly laughing along with Yuri.

Yuri reached over and inspected a small shelf of prepackaged meats, which were shipped from a nearby large town. He poked what looked like pork for a few seconds, and realizing it was, indeed, pork, he grabbed it and tossed it into the basket Viktor was holding. Grabbing out his pencil, he flicked his wrist and crossed pork off of the list, moving on to the next item. In went the celery, then the ingredients for the sauce, then everything else on the list before they quickly rang it all up and left, Viktor easily being able to carry almost ninety percent of the groceries while Yuri only carried two bags. His tawny brown eyes were again trained on his own two feet as they walked forward.

Thump!

He looked up to see that someone had bumped into him - a rather unorthodox looking boy, with pearly white hair and crimson stitches spiraling around his left arm. His scarlet eyes peered at Yuri with slight curiosity as he smiled happily at him, revealing that there were more of the same stitches on his lower lip.

"So-rry!! I didn't mean to bump into you like that!"

"O-Oh, you're fine," Yuri responded cordially to the boy, trying to hide that he had just made a rocket of pain shoot right through Yuri's shoulder. He then walked off with Viktor in tow, oblivious to the fact that his wallet was missing from his back pocket.

The white-haired boy watched as the pair of ice skaters walked off before skipping over to a metal railing, hopping onto it as if it were a seat.

"Let's see," he said to himself as he looked at Yuri's small leather wallet. With a fick of his thump, it opened up. Inside, he found his identification, some crinkled dollar bills that had been sitting in there for a while, and not much else besides some pictures of him and Viktor skating taken by fans. He eyed the picture on his driver's licence blankly.

"Yuri Katsuki, huh?" His aloof expression was then replaced with a wide and mischievous smile. "That's the ice skater from TV, huh? I never realized I would bump into someone famous while on my vacation. Wow!"

He held the plastic card up to the sunlight and looked at the small, square picture of Yuri's face again. "Not very rich, I have to admit, but it'll do! I don't get paid nearly enough anyway."

"Suzuya Juuzou," a stern voice came from near him. Suzuya looked to the left before realizing it was only his partner, Shinohara, who had a stern expression in his face. It looked like he was about to scold a child. "Put the money back into the wallet. And stop stealing things! You're just like a pirate!"

"O-kayyyy," Suzuya grumbled, letting out a sigh of disdain as he put the license back into its pocket, shoving his few crumpled dollar bills back in as well.

"I don't think Mr. Katsuki would be very happy to know that you stole his stuff. We'll go turn it in to the police station after we eat."

Suzuya looked slightly saddened, but nodded his head, easily hopping off of the metal railing and handing the wallet to Shinohara. Then, he looked up at the buff and burly man, crossing his skinny and pale arms.

"Where are we going, anyway? My stomach's all rumbly-tumbly!"

Shinohara rolled his eyes at the boy's childish behavior and explained - in vigorous detail - the place that they were going to have lunch.

"It's a small little place called Yu-Topia Katsuki right nearby. They have really good food, especially katsudon, from what I've heard."

"Kat-su-don?I've never heard of anything like that."

"Word from the locals is that it's very delicious. I'm excited to try it for myself."

"Yay! Thank you, Shinohara-san! I'm so excited!" Suzuya clapped his hands together excitedly, skipping far ahead of the older man and toward the small restaurant, disappearing from view.