There was something in the air that evening- something that seemed laced with possibilities and effervescent with tension. Yuri could sense it as he walked home slowly, hands shoved in his pocket and head low. He didn't know whether it was just a projection of his own anxieties or a result of the depression before a predicted storm bringing a crackling static that rose the hairs on his neck. He had a few hours to kill and this was his reason for walking with such leisure, added to which he was doing his best to avoid his friends who were just up ahead. All day long they'd been hounding him about his hickeys, asking who the girl was and whether he could set them up with someone. It made him uncomfortable to lie to them so easily when it would directly affect his ability to tell the truth; the less he told them now, the angrier they'd be later.
'Mum, Otabek's coming over later,' He called as he walked in the door and stamped his feet on the mat. When no reply came, he assumed she'd be at work or something. He chucked his bag onto a chair and flopped down into the sofa in the sitting room, switching on the TV and mindlessly flicking through the channels until he found one slightly less mind-numbingly boring than the rest. It slowly hypnotised him into a restless sort of sleep from which he constantly awoke uncomfortable and wracked with hunger pangs. By the time he was permanently roused, it was eight o'clock. He groaned and rolled off the sofa, lying on the floor for a second and trying to get his wits about him before he stood up and straightened himself out. He didn't exactly look respectable in his uniform that he'd been wearing for the majority of his time at secondary school, with all its motheaten holes in the jumper and the grass-stains on the knees of the trousers, but it'd have to do. He forced himself to stay away from the door because it felt way too desperate and flighty to wait beside it, but this only made him more nervous. He didn't know why he was so het up about a simple question when Otabek had been drunk when he'd said he wanted to ask it- for all he knew, he could be asking what his favourite colour was. When the doorbell finally rang he jumped and took a few deep breaths as he walked down to it. Otabek was stood on his doorstep wearing his signature leather jacket and biker boots with a roguish expression on his face. Mismatched with his mainly serene exterior were his hands, which were knotted together behind his back and fidgeting anxiously. That was not a good omen.
'Hey,' He grinned, flashing his teeth.
'Hi,' Yuri breathed, tucking his hair behind his ear and waving him in. 'What did you want to ask?'
'Unimportant for now. Have you eaten yet?'
'Yeah, I-'
'Liar. I brought food. Hope you like Thai,' He brought his hands round and revealed a carrier bag full of takeaway. Yuri gulped hard; takeaway was so greasy and terrifying to him. Nevertheless, he and Otabek sat down at the kitchen counter and he watched him unpacking everything.
'Do you have any chilli powder?' Otabek piped up as he passed Yuri a box.
'Uhh, sure. Spice rack over there.'
Otabek nodded and walked over to where he was directed, at which point he turned round to stare at Yuri in horror. He looked mildly offended and majorly disgusted.
'What?' Yuri frowned, looking past him to see nothing wrong.
'This is just salt, pepper, cinnamon and chilli flakes! That's not a spice rack, that's tragic.'
'I don't really eat spicy food,' Yuri explained, although it wasn't because he didn't like it- it was just absolute hell to purge anything hot. He wanted to preserve as much of his throat as was possible with the already corrosive acid coming up.
'Sorry, I forget sometimes...'
'Forget what?'
'That you're white.'
Yuri giggled and shrugged nonchalantly, watching Otabek practically empty the pot of chilli powder into his food. He poked at his own food, not even wanting to look at it in case the calories jumped from the picture in his mind to his stomach. It felt wrong to even smell it. Could he ingest calories from breathing in its scent? He pushed it away uneasily, his head swimming. He didn't know if it was fear or he was just dizzy from starvation, but he suddenly felt nauseated.
'What did you want to ask me?' He quickly brought this up so as to distract Otabek from the fact that he wasn't eating.
'Oh, right,' Otabek put down his fork, took a long sip of water and stood up, his hands wringing together again. Yuri was struck by how anxious he looked, and it in turn rubbed off on him. 'Look how nervous you're making me.'
'Me?' It went straight past Yuri that he could possibly be the cause of this. He was always the flustered one, not the flusterer.
'I'm totally helpless,' Seeing Yuri's bashful smile made Otabek brave and he plucked up what courage he had in his cowardly lion mind. He inhaled cool air to steel his nerves and took Yuri's hands, pulling him up. 'I wanted to ask you if you wanted to make this a serious thing.'
'Oh,' Yuri gasped and felt his knees go weak. 'Is this a joke?'
'No, you idiot! Jesus, as if it wasn't hard enough to ask...' Otabek saw how pale his face had turned and how his hand had grabbed at the tabletop. 'I meant it.'
'Then... Yes,' Yuri surprised him by saying, no hint of uncertainty in his voice. 'But I'll need to tell everyone. I can't keep lying.'
'Yeah, of course. When?'
'I mean... Tonight? My mum will be home soon. I'll text my friends tonight or something. Will you stick around while I tell her?' He didn't want to admit he just needed somebody's hand to hold in case she got angry.
'Whatever you need,' Otabek kissed his head. 'I will be right here.'

Yuri paced back and forth as his mum made herself a cup of tea, raking his hands through his hair and counting his breaths until they were slightly more regular. He'd gotten past the first hurdle of telling her he needed to tell her something, but now he faced the colossal obstacle of telling her said something. She'd looked worried when he'd told her and he was scared she already knew what he was going to say and didn't like it. His breathing became out of sync again as he thought this and he tried desperately not to gasp for breath so.
'It'll be fine,' Otabek said in a soothing voice, gathering him into a hug.
'What if she's angry?'
'Doesn't matter. I'm right here, okay?'
Yuri nodded and took a deep breath, stepping away and looking up at his boyfriend (okay, that felt weird). It would be fine. Even if his mum was angry, there wasn't much she could do. He could live with Otabek if needs be just for a while until he cooled off and let him come home. He doubted it would come to that, but he'd heard stories before and it was still playing in his mind a little. When his mother finally returned a fresh wave of panic came over him so that he had to sit down before he passed out. She sipped at her tea then put it down on the coffee table and sat in a chair across from him, watching as Otabek sat beside him and put an arm round him.
'Okay,' Yuri began, his leg bouncing up and down in agitation. 'I've been meaning to tell you this for a while, but I was scared you'd be angry, and I really don't want to piss you off but I- sorry.'
He smiled and looked down, slowing his thoughts down and trying to organise them into one sentence. He had to get it out and get it over with and that was all. Then it was done and he couldn't procrastinate it any further or stress himself out over how to say it. He opened his mouth, but the words refused to come. He looked to Otabek for help and received nothing but a supportive smile. It did little to ease his vocal constipation, but it did remind him that he wasn't alone in this.
'So what I've been meaning to say- what I've been trying to tell you is...' He hesitated one last time before blurting it out. 'I'm gay. And Otabek and I are... Are you crying?'
He watched the tears jump forth to her eyes, spilling over and dropping down her cheeks.
'I'm sorry,' He hung his head. Shit... For a moment he'd thought she'd be okay with it. Clearly not.
'No, I'm happy,' She sniffed, shocking both Yuri and Otabek equally. 'I'm happy you wanted to tell me, and I'm glad you've found somebody to make you happy.'
'Really?' Yuri's eyes lit up and without thinking about it he reached for Otabek's hand, clinging tightly to it as he bit back his own tears. 'I thought you'd be mad.'
'You're my son. If I didn't love you unconditionally, I wouldn't be your mother.'
He hugged her, unable to contain his relief. That was one person down, only the rest of the world left to go. He thanked her and hugged her again before dragging Otabek upstairs to discuss strategies of telling his friends. Whatever happened, the last thing he wanted to do was make a big deal out of it, so over text seemed the way to go. He couldn't think of what to say, however, and google was completely useless when he consulted the internet.
'You know, when I came out to my followers all I did was post a picture of a rainbow,' Otabek told him. 'Everyone was pretty cool with it.'
'That's actually a really good idea,' A brainwave came to Yuri and he leapt up from where he'd been lying on the floor trying to compose a text to his friends. 'Why don't you just post a picture of us? I think all my friends follow you, and even if only one of them sees it they'll show it to everyone else.'
'Right. But just a photo of us wouldn't really work- it'd need a caption to explain.'
'I mean, the photo could be one where we're obviously together.'
'Gazing lovingly into each other's eyes wearing matching rainbow shirts? Sounds great.'
'No! Like... I don't know,' He blushed. 'It was a stupid idea. Sorry.'
Otabek laughed at him and bent down to kiss him. Yuri smiled back and ran his hands through Otabek's hair, messing it up in the way he so loved to do. It was still a tad on the strange side to think that this was his boyfriend when it still felt a little like they hardly knew each other, but overall it was pretty cathartic. He flinched when he heard the familiar sound of a camera shutter.
'Otabek, did you just take a selfie? Oh my god, you're unbelievable...'
'There. We have the picture. Should I post it?'
Yuri frowned, suddenly not so sure anymore. He wanted to have it over with but he was still scared of the backlash. The comments he'd seen on other photos of himself ricocheted through his mind and he wasn't sure he could brave that. He trusted Otabek though, so he nodded. He watched him press post with a new sense of excitement and adrenaline settling in his stomach. Within about five minutes his own phone started to buzz and he gave Otabek a look that he felt perfectly conveyed his feelings of fear because within seconds he was being cuddled as he unlocked his phone.
'Yuri, wtf?' One friend had texted him.
'Pls tell me this is a joke' Somebody else had sent. Both came with screenshots of the picture. An added bonus to the photo was the hickeys scattered across his neck, highlighted by the bright light of his bedroom. He texted them all back just a simple winking face and left it at that. Next, he perused the comments on the original post. A lot of it was 'you two are so cute!' with the odd 'I didn't know he was gay??' mixed in. Mostly people were just asking them to confirm their status, and in an astonishing act of bravery he commented that they were boyfriends. Another few minutes and he had a barrage of texts from his closest friends all demanding to know what the hell was going on. No longer could he skirt around the truth, so he issued a unanimous statement to all of them.
'He's my boyfriend.'
Short, sweet, blatant. How else could he put it, anyway? Instead of waiting around to receive replies he placed his phone in a drawer out of harm's way so that he wouldn't dwell on it for too long.
'Can we go somewhere?' He asked, needing a while to take his mind off of things.
'Sure. Where do you want to go?'
'I don't care.'
'Well, I brought my car so we can go anywhere.'
'Can we go to the park?'
'The one where we went before?'
'Yeah,' Yuri felt like there was some sort of poetry to it; returning to the place where he'd first started to question things. That night had been the starting point for when Otabek first kissed him and as a result was technically the reason they were together now. Then again, he could trace it past that point to the moment in the hospital where they'd walked into each other. If he'd been less agitated from his appointment he would never have tried to escape and he certainly never would have been brave enough to talk to him the way he did. He did vaguely remember snapping at him in a waiting room- although he wasn't sure if he was just imagining the memory because he'd been told it had happened- and even now he didn't think he could talk to anyone like that unless he was absolutely furious. Maybe it was because his brain only half functioned these days anyway. He had definitely spiralled a lot since they'd met, and he almost missed the days where he was capable of eating the occasional meal to appease people where now he couldn't eat in front of people for fear they'd think he was faking it. Did that make him an attention seeker? Did it mean he was just doing it to make people think he wasn't eating? It was true that he binged frequently, even if he threw it up afterwards. He had less self control now than ever before but at least he had the strength of self to force it all up, even when his throat felt like shards of glass. It was happening at least six times a week now and he didn't know how much longer he could go on for like this. He was due to go back to the doctor the coming weekend and they were going to talk to him about planning for the future or something stupid. It had been a chirpy woman with close-cropped hair and buck teeth who had conducted the initiation test for the recovery course and she was going to go through the results with him at his next appointment. He was apprehensive about it only because he'd have to talk to them for two hours and he knew it would upset him, but other than that he had nothing else to worry about since up until this point he'd proved beyond help. Added to this his mum was very impatient with his supposed recovery process and the second a treatment wasn't going how it should be she gave up on it. He didn't mind of course, because it kept him away from something that might help him. Deep down, the part of him that still wanted to be normal raged against his self-ruinous behaviour and longed for somebody to save him. Unfortunately, he'd long buried that part and he was steadily rolling down a steep slope to the end of his mortal coil. Otabek's hand took his, leading him down the stairs and distracting him from his assailant thoughts. The walk there was spent in silence after they decided driving was pointless for such a short distance. Once they arrived there, Yuri was alarmed to see that there were still some young children playing on the wooden structures that were covered in lewd graffiti and phone numbers, their parents nowhere to be seen. Doing his best to ignore them, he sat on one of the swings and tipped his head back to look at the sky. The sun was suspended just above the horizon and preparing to dip beneath it so that the Earth's surface had become dewy and fuzzy like an old TV screen. It was light enough to see objects, but not in their correct colours. The stars were blinking lazily at him, hardly piercing the sky. He felt infinitely small staring up at such a vast expanse of nothingness and it brought him such a sense of peace that he sighed contentedly. Looking into the abyss of galaxies and endless, exponential space made his life appear so insignificant and it was moments like this that made him wonder if he was going about things all wrong. Did it really matter whether he took up a bit more space in the grand scheme of things when compared to the universe he was still so inconsequential? He had just one small life, the blink of an eye beside the stretching of time, and perhaps it was futile to waste it making himself miserable all for the sake of looking 'good'. He didn't even look good anyway; he saw the way most people stared at him with horror and disdain rather than awe and envy. He looked like shit with his hollow cheeks and wasted face, his eyes sunken in so that they cast shadows that dulled their light. The problem was it wasn't really about how he looked anymore. It had never been about looking good- it had always been the idea of people seeing him. He wasn't invisible when he was dying, even if he was fading from existence. Everybody's eyes sought him out to ensure he was still living and it was thrilling to say the least. People were scared for him and however awful it was to think like he did, he enjoyed it. They talked to him because they wanted to make him happy so that he'd get better, so the worse he got the nicer people were to him. It was also about being sick. He didn't know why and he didn't know what for, but being sick had become a very key part of his life. He wanted to look as sick on the outside as he felt within so that people would help him. This actually came as a sharp realisation to him, one that made his eyes widen. Did he want help? Did he maybe have a chance after all? Was there any way possible he could heal after all that he'd been through?
'Do you think I'll ever get better?' He queried suddenly, and Otabek frowned at him.
'Of course,' He replied without hesitation. 'Why wouldn't you?'
'Because I haven't been able to after so many professionals have tried to help me.'
'But you haven't wanted their help. If you don't want it, it won't make a difference.'
'But nobody wants it! Nobody else at the clinic wanted it at first and they still got better, so why can't I? Why do I have to be stuck like this?'
'You don't,' Otabek crouched down in front of him, taking both his hands and gripping them tightly in his own. 'You're not stuck. You just need to find a reason to recover.'
'Like what?'
'Like happiness. Like not feeling like shit all the time. Like not waking up in the middle of the night in pain.'
'I don't think I'll ever be happy- I mean, I just don't think this will ever go away.'
'One day, you'll be looking back on how you are now and you'll be so glad for how far you've come,' Otabek replied and stroked the backs of his hands with his thumbs.
'I don't know. Maybe,' Yuri conceded, unable to continue the conversation any further. His mood had fallen flat and he needed rebooting or something. He sat on the swing a little while longer and watched as Otabek lit up a cigarette, taking a drag and blowing the smoke into the night air. He didn't tell him that it'd fuck him up inside because it felt distinctly hypocritical when he was doing the exact same thing by different means. Instead, he just watched him.
'I don't usually smoke,' Otabek told him with a guarded expression. 'But it's cold and I'm stressed, so this is where I'm at right now.'
'You don't have to justify yourself,' Yuri stood up and folded his arms across his chest to stop the hunger pains from attacking so viciously. He'd forgotten about them for a while, but they were beginning to creep back now, so strong this time that he could no longer ignore them. Otabek smiled at him and finished the cigarette before stamping it into the ground with his boot, grinding the butt under his toe.
'Do I need to get you home?' He inquired, arching an eyebrow.
'I appreciate the gesture, but I'm actually older than I look. I don't have a curfew.'
'You're sixteen. Your curfew is eleven.'
Yuri stuck his tongue out and Otabek returned the gesture, crossing his eyes