things we did before you got married
A/N: For @phichuuriweekâ day 7. Prompt: days in Detroit. Big thank you to the mods for handling this event! <3
After two yearsâ absence, it seems only right to return to Motor City behind the wheel.
âYou know how to get to the hotel?â
Phichitâs fingers drum idly against the steering wheel in time to whateverâs playing on the radio in the rental carâthe jingle, now, for some detergent ad. He punches the button for another station, thinks Shouldâve brought an aux cord. âItâs not far now. Two streets away from our old building. We used to pass it on the way to school, remember?â
âI remember,â Yuuri answers, smiling. Then something new seems to come to him, some new worry, and his brow wrinkles up the way itâs always done, his glasses slipping down his nose. âAnd the church?â
âAlready looked it up,â Phichit tells him. After a pause, dutifully, he answers the unasked question: âWeâll be fine.â
Their two tuxedos swing now inside their garment bags from the hook above the backseat. Thereâs a map attached to the wedding invitation in Yuuriâs backpack, tucked carefully between the pages of his planner so as not to crease the marble cardstock, disturb the handmade lace snowflakes glued across the front. Theyâd had a good laugh on the flight here from Tokyoâabout how Laura from the rink must have done so well for herself these past two years, and now they had no choice but to step up their planning game.
(âIf this weddingâs anything like the invite says itâll be, sheâs set the bar high. Donât test me,â Phichit had warned. âDonât test Victor.â Yuuri had cracked up and slumped low in his seat with his hands over his face, moaning about how he could already foresee being ganged up on by his best man and his fiancĂŠ.)
They pass a McDonaldâs on their left, an art museum on their right. Yuuri has his nose pressed nearly to the glass as he scans the streets outside, reading the signsâWillis, Canfield E, Garfield, Forest Ave. Phichit wonders if they look foreign to him again, after so much time away. Or does he still recognize this place?
âYuuri, we lived here. I know midtown as well as I know you.â
âI know that,â Yuuri murmurs. Phichit recognizes the look on his face when he turns away from the window, the lines still creasing his forehead, the crooked half-smile that says heâs embarrassed by his own nervousness. Heâs seen exactly that lookâexactly this image of Yuuri in the passenger seatâfrom the driverâs seat of a different car, many, many times. âI just wanted to be sure.â
Some things, Phichit thinks, never leave a person. Somehow, theyâve always known the way.
âBe sure,â he says, reaches across to scrunch Yuuri in the ribsâand laughs, loud and long at the next red light, when Yuuri catches his hand and doesnât let go.
