For the love of Yuri

Day one

Junior year. I wondered if anything would change. Standing in front of the school, I eyed the brick-and-mortar building. The light sandstone shone slightly in the sun. My eyes traveled up to the bell tower. There was a giant clock there now. That was new this year. It was because of me. Well not technically me, but if I didn’t exist it would still be a bell tower.
Near the end of last year, the other Yuri had hung me by a rope, upside down, in a dress from the tower. He didn’t have the strength to keep me up there. The rope started to burn his hands. He had yelled for me to climb up, but as he well knew, I was afraid of heights. That was when the new kid had come.
I had nearly fallen to my death. Instead, the new transfer student had seen what was going on. He had ran from the courtyard, up to the top of the tower to grab the rope. His long thin fingers managed to get a hold of it just as Yuri let it “slip”. He claimed that part was an accident. I still didn’t believe him. The sad thing was, we had been best friends in kindergarten. I’m not sure where I went wrong. How had I managed to get on his bad side?
First grade I had waited eagerly to greet him that first day. But he came to school different. He was sad and sullen hardly talked to anyone for months. Then he just changed. He became my worst nightmare. Bullying me any chance he got. It still happens now.
Currently I am hiding between a large tree and the corner of the wall. My best friend these days is Phichit Chulanont. I was waiting here for him, while at the same time attempting to hide from Yuri Plisetsky, my tormentor.  Oh, the reason we have the clock, well they decided it was too risky to have a student fall from the bell tower. Did Yuri get in trouble, not that I ever found out. I never did get the name of that new kid that helped me. He was beautiful though. Silver hair and ice blue eyes atop a nice tall body. I smirked at remembering him.
That was until a hard force kicked me from behind. I fell out of my heading place, face first onto the cement walkway. “Oh, look a little piggy feel out of the tree!” The taunting voice sang above my head. Yuri had found me. Why did he always pick on me? It’s not like he had any other friends. Occasionally he could be seen with JJ or Christophe, but if you ask either of them, they would tell you they were not friends with him.
“Hello, Yuri.” I muttered picking myself up from the ground. My pant leg above my knee was ripped with a slight discoloration leaking around it. I ignored the blond boy, even if I was hyper aware of his prescience.
“Why don’t you just hang yourself, little piggy? Put the rest of us out of our misery of seeing your face every day.” I didn’t answer him, but another voice did.
“Well, that is just rude. Besides, I like his face.” I looked up to see the new kid from the end of last year.  He stepped around Yuri to come place his face a few inches from mine. I felt the heat rush to my cheeks.
“See?” He said with an eye crinkling smile. “Like the way it changes color like that. And those eyes….” He gripped my chin turning my head one way then the other. “They are so beautiful. Like living chocolate.” He giggled.
“Who… a who are you?” I gasped out starring into those clear blue eyes. He laughed not sounding offended at all.
“Well, we did meet back in June, but you were a bit busy hanging out the tower.” He chuckled standing up tall while releasing my face. “I am Victor Nikiforov.” He announced it as if he was announcing royalty or something. I gaped at him. Was he for real?
“A Yuuri, is everything ok?” Pulling my gaze from the stunning face of Victor I saw that Phichit had arrived.
“Oh great, your boyfriends here.” Yuri muttered. He stuffed his hands into his pockets making sure he kicked me once more on his way past.
“Oh, is that true?” Victor asked looking sad as his blue eyes darted between Phichit and myself.
“Not at all!” Phichit cried. “Yuuri and I are just really good friends. Best of friends.” He blurted. I saw his dark eyes rove over to the waiting crowd. Yup, there he was the sex god of our grade, Christophe Giacometti. He was also Phichit’s latest crush. Something I didn’t get at all. Christophe just gave me a creepy pervy vibe. My eyes flicked over Victor who was still watching me.
“So, you are Yuri too?” he asked.
“Yes.” I held out my hand “Yuuri Katsuki.” I stated. Instead of taking my hand to shake it, he lifted it to his lips. Pressing his soft pink ones to my knuckles he purred.
“So nice to make you acquaintance, Yuuri Katsuki.” After releasing my hand, he began to walk away. “I will be keeping an eye on you.” He winked. Turning his back to us he marched over to Christophe. The blond was a few inches taller than Victor. As he approached, Christophe opened his arms, Victor walked right into them giving him a hug. They kissed each other’s cheek in greeting. I sighed. That was a pair alright.
“Come on, we can’t be late.” I told Phichit.
“Do you want to get a band aid for that?” he pointed to my still bleeding knee. Oh, I had forgotten. Slipping my bag off I pulled out the first aid kit I kept in it. Getting a band and an alcohol wipe out I cleaned up the wound. It was small but wouldn’t stop bleeding. I put the band aide over it. As I was still bent down Phichit started tapping my head.
“Stop it, you’re going to give me a headache!” I cried.
“Oh, how I hate that phrase!” Christophe’s sexy deep-toned voice spoke above me. I blinked looking up. He stood there leaning on Victor, his emerald eyes looking down on me.
“Stop, Christophe, you will embarrass him.” Victor cooed at him. That was enough to make me want to gag. Who in their right mind would coo at Christophe, the creep?
I stood up. “Is there something you want?” I asked.
“The b be bell…” Phichit stuttered. Right, he had a thing about talking to attractive guys. I sighed. Christophe was anything but attractive to me. Not since he cornered me in the locker room freshman year. I only had a towel on and he really liked my ass. Luckily Yuri showed up before it could go any further than Christophe groping me. That was probably the only time I was glad to see him since first grade.
“Right, we have to go…”  I stated taking Phichit’s elbow. Christophe had his hands all over Victor, and he looked like he enjoyed it. I frowned. If only he knew…
With that I put them both out of my mind. Taking Phichit inside we found our homeroom. Luckily, we had the same one. Hopefully that would mean our lockers would be near each other. I took a seat in the front row, right in front of the teacher’s podium. It was the only place I knew Yuri couldn’t bully me during class.
Phichit sat down beside me without a word. “Oh look, the piggy is so eager to learn. Go little piggy go!” Yuri chanted from somewhere near the back.
“That’s funny, but why are you being so mean?” A new voice said. I turned my head to see a guy dressed in leather sitting beside Yuri.
“Because its him!” Yuri screamed in his face. “Mind your own business!”
“Oh look, the little girl is getting upset. Everyone watch out” JJ cried from the other side of the room.
“YOU’RE A DOUCHE!” Yuri screamed just as the teacher walked in. Lila Baranovkaya, was not one to allow something like that in her class. She taught History and looked to be old enough to have lived through it all. She told the students to call her Mrs. B since she hated how bad we butchered her name. Secretly many of the student body had suggested that the B stood for Bitch.
“Yuri Plisetsky, principle now!” she barked. Yuri stood to walk out. JJ started clapping. Soon the entire room was. All but myself, Phichit and to my surprise, Victor. I hadn’t seen him or Christophe enter the room, but there they were sitting beside each other just behind and to the right of me.
“Now here are your locker assignments, combination and class schedule. Along with your planner for the year. Any questions?” Of course, no one had any. She allowed us to go out to our lockers to put away our backpacks. Phichit and I quickly looked to see where our lockers were. They ended up being four lockers in between ours.
“That’s ok, we can just share.” Phichit offered. It was what we had been doing for the past two years. Those years it was nice since he had a locker on the opposite side of school than me. We would just divide our class books up keep those near his locker there and the ones near mine in my locker. Now it would be more difficult.
“Sure thing.” I smiled. I walked up to my locker to put in the combination.
“Looks like we are locker neighbors.” Victor said stepping to the locker to my left. I blinked at him.
“Oh, god!” I mumbled. He laughed.  “No, no I meant good, oh good!” I cried. He tilted his head to one side with a smile,
“Sure Yuuri!” Christophe was beside him on the other side. Then JJ, Kenjirou Minami, who preferred to be called Minami. He was beside Phichit’s locker. He had this weird obsession with me, ever since he found out I could skate.  There was one locker to the right of mine.
I stepped back to look along the hall. Our entire class was there all lined up, all but Yuri. No! I screamed. Turning I saw Mrs. B standing in the door way to the class room.
“Uh, Mrs. B?” I asked she glared down her long nose at me. “Uh, where is Yuri’s locker?” I asked a pit forming in my stomach.
“I put that little prima donna right where I can keep an eye on him.” Her hand slapped the locker beside mine. I swallowed hard. My life was over. He was going to torment me all year.
I trudged through the rest of the day. Phichit had no classes with me the first part of the day. Victor was in two, Yuri in one and somehow Minami was in all of them. He was walking me to lunch chatting about some video game he had been playing over the summer. I nodded and mmmhmmed in just the right places to pretend I was listening. In reality I was looking for Phichit, watching out for Yuri and hoping to see Victor again.
We walked into the lunch room. Phichit was in line. Snagging Minami’s arm I dragged him toward my best friend. I wasn’t going to leave the kid to the wolves, he was so small!
“Phichit, how’s your day been?” I asked cutting in line. There were only two people behind him. Christophe and Victor slightly teased us.
“Oh, look Victor your boy toy must be hungry to budge in line like that.” Christophe stated.
“Well at least he can speak…” Victor’s voice trailed away as I glared up at him. He looked shocked by my angry face.
“Phichit can talk. He is just sick of all these assholes picking on him because of his accent. You should understand that since yours is so thick.” I snarled standing up for my friend. Victor was Russian, anyone could tell that.
He sighed. Bowing his head, he conceded. “You are correct Yuuri, please accept my apology…”
“I’m not the one you need to apologize too.” I pointed out. Victor turned to apologize to Phichit. As nice as he was, Phichit told him it was ok. I relaxed.
“Oh, no, little runt!” Christophe cried out. He snagged the hood of Yuri’s jacket dragging the kid away from me. Hmm, maybe he wasn’t a complete pervert. I thought.
It ended up that Christophe, Victor, Minami, Phichit and I took a table in the far corner. Yuri sat nearby glaring at us. The new kid from home room stepped up to our table.
“This seat taken?” We said no. He introduced himself as Otabek Atlin. He then called Yuri over to sit with us. Filling up our table. Yuri sat directly across from me. We glared at each other before Victor took control of the conversation telling us funny stories about his friends back in Russia.