2

Chapter 2

Yuuri Katsuki woke up and stretched, trying to loosen up and release all of the tension. As he rolled out of bed he glanced over at his nightstand. A note was placed there along with some of Victor's art supplies. It read "Don't forget today's assignment".

Grabbing a notebook Yuuri walked out of his bedroom and headed downstairs to prepare breakfast. On his way he ran into Mari who was coming from the kitchen herself.

"Hey dad, why are you up so early?" She yawned. "Aren't you normally still asleep by this time?"

Her question caught him off guard. It seemed like she didn't remember anything that happened the last night. "Ah..." He scratched the back of his neck and said "I guess so…" He paused for a second as an idea came to him and added "Actually, do you think you can help me with the assignment? You're my favorite student after all." He chuckled.

Mari looked surprised for a second but smirked. "Sure thing dad! Let's start now!"

Victor followed her into the kitchen and sat at the dining room table as she gathered ingredients for pancakes. "Where should I begin…" She said looking at the recipe on the page. "We'll start with the main part of the essay: explaining the concept of 'Victoz' and the meaning behind it…"

She scribbled down a few things into her book while Victor just listened. After a minute she finished making the pancakes and sat down across from her father. Once she had eaten and was done talking she handed the textbook back to Victor.

"Okay so what do we need first?"

Victor flipped through the pages of his textbook until he landed on the page he needed. "This is the chapter on 'Victoz'." He opened up the page and started reading. "Victoz stands for the opposite of Victor. This means that someone can be a victim and someone can be victor. We call him a victim because of this, but we also call him victor because of this. He is the only one that suffers, the only one that struggles, and the only one who does not deserve his own suffering. That's why he is referred as the 'victim' of the story." He smiled as he finished reading.

Yuuri was shocked at how well he understood the words, but he didn't say anything. His father had a habit of being extremely mysterious and not giving any details unless someone prompted him to explain himself. So he stayed quiet knowing his father didn't want him to interrupt.

After breakfast Victor returned to his room so he could work on his project. He picked up a pen and started drawing a simple silhouette using the background. Before long he lost track of time and didn't realize how late it actually was.

He grabbed his phone and checked the time, realizing he had been working for almost three hours. He sighed and looked over to the clock on his nightstand which read 12:45pm. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but the thought of spending even more time on that homework was terrifying. He pushed those thoughts aside and decided to go to sleep instead.

That night he lay awake in bed thinking of the essay questions and ideas that he needed to complete. He kept replaying his conversation with the teacher in his head. He was worried and nervous about tomorrow. How was he supposed to pull this off? Did he even know what kind of person he was supposed to be interacting with? Was anyone watching? Did he already screw everything up already?

Once he realized he was stressing out too much about what might happen, he closed his eyes and started counting sheeps. By the time he was done with his sheep counting he decided that sleeping would calm his nerves down and maybe take care of the stress he was feeling.

With the lights still on he laid down in bed staring at the ceiling. Eventually he drifted off to sleep and dreamt about skating.