7

Chapter 7

"Huh? Move in with you?" Yuuri asked, completely confused by his parents suggestion.

His father nodded with a serious expression on his face. "Yes. With me and your mother."

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly. "But why? I thought we were supposed to stay in Hasetsu…"

Yuuri's mother spoke up now. "We wanted to be close to your friends. And as much as we love living here we do miss you being around. If I had any choice I would never leave Hasetsu, especially because you live here with us. However I knew that it was not possible for me to raise you by myself. The only option I had was to let someone else take care of you."

Yuuri didn't respond, he just stayed quiet and listened silently.

"And you know what else… We also missed Victor quite a lot… We really didn't expect to ever see him again. Especially after everything that happened between us when he ran away." He looked over at Yuuri and saw how his bottom lip was quivering. "We couldn't bring ourselves to give up hope though, so eventually we decided to call his friend Chris. Do you remember Chris? From college? He contacted us a few months ago asking us for help to find Victor and to tell you about it."

Yuuri nodded in understanding. "You told me he helped you track down Victor last year and then you gave me the letter he wrote for me."

Both adults chuckled slightly. "That is true… Anyway, once we found Victor's address he agreed to keep in touch with us. I was happy for a long time until we realized we still hadn't received a single word from Victor."

He suddenly felt like the air in the room was suddenly heavy. How could Victor be gone for such a long time and his parents didn't even notice it until recently. They were worried sick. "I think we should send out some notices in the paper explaining where Victor might be hiding and why he wasn't answering our calls or letters."

He nodded slowly before leaning back in his chair and staring blankly at the table. "Okay…" He whispered softly as he tried to process what his parents had told him so far. "So… Can I go visit him again? Maybe he'll say yes to seeing me?" He looked back up at them and waited for a response. They simply stared at each other with furrowed eyebrows.

Yuuri frowned and bit his lower lip in thought. "Did something happen…? Did Victor reject my letter?" He asked, feeling his chest tighten. The image of Victor standing in the middle of the street after Yuuri had gotten off his bike and walking away flashed through his head causing him to feel nauseous.

They both seemed surprised by his sudden question. "No... Nothing like that. In fact he actually agreed to see you and explain to you what happened." His father replied, a look of shock clearly written across his face. "He wants to apologise for the misunderstanding he created."

Yuuri shook his head slowly. "Don't worry about it… It's fine I guess. But why isn't he telling me himself?"

His father sighed. "He didn't seem to be able to talk properly. But it does look like he wants to apologize for leaving so suddenly. Perhaps it has something to do with his leg? Maybe it hurts whenever he tries to walk normally."

His mother spoke up this time. "Actually there's one problem with that theory... Victor told us that there were people who caused a huge accident when he was little. His leg got injured during that day and it became infected. When he went to get it treated the doctors put him in a wheelchair for a month afterwards."

Yuuri nodded in understanding and took another sip from his drink.

"However when his condition finally improved he was finally allowed to move normally again. The doctors didn't know about his legs so they couldn't heal properly without surgery. He spent the entire three days in the hospital recovering until he was finally able to walk again. Then he came home a while ago and was able to recover completely." His mother explained.

Yuuri nodded his head slowly.

"Well if he does want to apologize then I guess we can let him come round today. I don't want him to be upset because I said he couldn't. Even if he doesn't have to pay me back or do anything in return… I still want to help him get better."

Yuuri's father nodded in agreement and took his fork and cut into his breakfast.

As they continued eating their breakfast together Yuuri kept glancing out the window at the rain pouring outside. He didn't mind having to wait till later since he wanted to enjoy some of his free time to himself.

Once breakfast was finished he gathered his things and walked over to the living room to get changed. Once he was changed he sat down on the couch, his phone in hand. He didn't reply to the text message Viktor sent him earlier, figuring it was something trivial which he'd most likely forget about when he woke up. Instead he decided to play his music as loud as he could until it was time to go to school. He was scrolling through his Instagram feed as his music was playing when he started getting bored waiting.

The first thing he noticed when he went to scroll a little higher was the small notification icon on his lock screen reading "From: Victor".

His fingers stopped scrolling and he brought his phone closer to read the words that were attached.

From: Victor

Subject: I'm Sorry

Hi Yuuri! I really am sorry for leaving without talking to you last night, it was stupid of me to do that. I promise it won't happen again. Thank you for forgiving me. I'll explain what happened and hopefully we can figure out a solution together. Please tell my family I'm sorry too and I promise I will contact you soon. Have a good day! :)

The message ended with an image of Victor smiling brightly at him, and Yuuri's stomach did a funny flip.

It really was like he had read Yuuri's mind. He felt bad about the whole situation, so much worse than he did before Yuuri left. It was only fair Yuuri forgave him when he didn't deserve to be mad at him in the first place. He needed to make sure he was doing okay after all. He didn't want to imagine what he must be feeling right now. Yuuri wasn't a stranger to rejection; He had plenty of experiences with it himself. But he knew Victor meant well, he always did