Prologue:

"Victor," Yuri's wraps an arm around him, and rests his head against his chest listening to his even heartbeats, "do you remember how we met?"

Victor opens his blue-green eyes, still groggy from sleep, he ruffles Yuri's hair affectionately. "How could I forget," he kisses the top of Yuri's head, inhaling his familiar scent.

Rays of morning sun shine through the blinds, outside their window is the cloudless cerulean sky. Yuri cannot believe till this day that he could wake up every day like this. On some mornings he would pinch himself, to confirm that this is real. Victor would laugh at him and tell him, yes this is real.

Once upon a time Yuri did not dare to dream.

He did not know how to cry.

He thought love was for the weak.

He did not believe that he would live past the age of thirty.

This is the story about hope, and how he was wrong.

Chapter 1: Monochrome

"Stay close to him, befriend him...seduce him, I don't care what you do to him," the masked figure's voice reverberates through the crisp night air, "Mantis, I know you won't disappoint me."

"Yes master," Yuri nods, his breaths pale against the night air, his blade behind his back. His code name is the Mantis, as invisible as he is deadly his black outfit clings tightly around his body, the only shade he ever wears when he is not in disguise on a mission. The temperature is below freezing, yet he does not feel cold, he feels numb to it. Part of him likes striking targets in the below freezing, the bodies are easier to clean up.

He turns the keys to his apartment, a simple black and white place. 65 degrees Fahrenheit. He likes it to be cold. He opens the doors of his closet. Inside is a rusty mirror, and several wire coat hangers, a black sweater partly falling off the hanger. He does not have many possessions, being is his line of work, called to be uprooted at any moment.

He gazes at his reflection in the mirror with a crack down the bottom third at his own twisted smile. What should I be to you, Dr. Nikiforov, a shy student, a friend? A brother? Or maybe a...lover? Chris is the one typical sent to seduce targets for information. He gazes into his own cold and dark eyes as he picks up a pair of blue rimmed glasses. Above the mirror he pinned a picture of his next target, the picture is shot from above. Victor's silver hair parted to the side and his blue-green eyes appear as if searching for something. I have never tried seducing a man before. He smiles to himself. He is confident with his appearance. But he knows, appearance is only secondary compared to the aura that he projects. It's the same reason some ordinary people appear incredibly beautiful, and some beautiful people ordinary.

Chris once told him that he is unbelievably sexy and he does not even know it, he shrugged him off. But he knows about seduction, it's easy, take one step forward and two steps back. Give a little and wait. He remembers each time Chris asks him to mess around he has to tell him to go fuck himself.

Yuri sits down onto his bed and opens the black folder on it, pictures and science papers spill out of it. He flips through the pictures, the news paper clippings, published science journals. Dr. Nikiforov is famous in the molecular biology world. There are old pictures of him as a graduate student with long silvery hair smiling next to his supervisor Yakov Feltsman, another legend. College girls must flock over him when he was their teaching assistant back then, Yuri smirks. The media too, also seemed a little more interested in his personal life. But unfortunately for those vultures, there was not much to discover.

During his training, his master taught him the art of reading people. Yuri speculates, he is probably a workaholic who neglects his personal life, like dark coffee, has a handful of friends in real life, and lives off ramen. Yuri takes out his phone and scrolls through the headlines including notorious websites that he cannot believe he wasted 5 seconds of his life browsing. Girls online claiming to have dated Victor. 'Is Dr. Nikiforov gay?'

I can't believe there are people make a living writing all of this shit.

Yuri's master also taught him to become anyone. He smiles as he practices an innocent expression, he decided to become an average bespectacled 23 year old that others would not take care to look twice. He pulls out a white dress shirt and an old blue tie from the bottom of the closet and swiftly throws his black outfit onto the ground. Moonlight through his windows illuminates his bare back, lithe and covered with shapes outlined in fine ink.

What should my story be...he thought to himself...fresh out of college, shy, a virgin, does not know how to socialize, worked in temp jobs and this is my first real job. I have big hopes and dreams, I want a dog, a brown poodle to be specific. He amuses himself weaving together the details of his new life. My parents own a small modest boutique hotel near the ocean on the warm side of the country...what if my life really is this simple, this ordinary...He pauses for a moment.

He gazes back at his reflection in the mirror, his hair is slicked back, he ruffles it forwards until several locks fall in front of his glasses. "Y-Yuri...Katsuki," he blushes extending a hand towards the mirror as he gazes down to the ground, "nice to meet you." His decided to project a submissive aura.

Perfect.

Suddenly the moonlight through his curtain brightens and snow comes into his apartment accompanied by howling wind outside.

Clank, reflexively his pulls his blade as it collides with another. 2 more clashes, effortlessly he blocks his attacker, who is fast like a gold flash of lightning.

He can hear his opponent gritting his teeth as he blocks each of his advance effortlessly. His attacker is under a black hooded sweater, on the front a fading tiger. A few locks of blonde hair leaks from under his hood as he leaps back.

There is the sound of scream outside, Yuri pauses for a split second.

"Gotcha!" Yurio smirks as he glances at Yuri's new disguises and wrinkles his nose pointing his sword at Yuri's throat. "Your kindness is what will kill you, big brother."

Suddenly Yurio finds himself pinned onto the ground with his arm twisted behind him and a blade next to his neck.

"And what will kill you," Yuri smirks back behind his blue framed glasses, "is your pride." He's gotten so much stronger, Yuri can't help but feel proud of his brother.

Yurio growls as he pushes Yuri off him and stands up soundlessly. "What's with the dorky look?" He tosses a convenient store rice ball at Yuri.

Yuri catches it swiftly in front of his nose and takes a bite. "got myself hired as an assistant to the famous Dr. Nikiforov."

"You make me sick pulling that innocent graduate student shit, Yuri," Yurio unwraps the other rice and sits next to his sworn brother. "and for fuck sake close the window, it's not like you are keeping bodies in here."

Then Yuri felt a something warm rub against his leg, as if intruding into his cold and frigid world, "Yurio, watch your language, "he feebly attempts to give his brother a lecture, but he knows his brother won't listen to a word of it, "and we can't. I am taking him outside now." He looks down at the cat with long white hair and blue-green eyes.

Yurio sticks out his middle finger.

Yuri sighs, it's better to leave a stray cat alone than to give it the false hope of a home, somewhere warm, then disappear and leave it in the cold again...but suddenly he remembers how he met Yurio. Like a stray kitten that he found from the streets as well, after he killed for the first time in his life and he thought that he was losing his mind.

Thank you for reading my story :)

here is the full summary:

The world is dying from a disease spreading like wildfire. Victor is brilliant molecular biologist struggling with finding the cure. Yuri is a mercenary with the nickname Mantis sent to kill him. Yurio is a rising star amongst the mercenaries, Yuri's sworn brother whom he would give anything to protect. A story of deception, betrayal, one love that crosses the enemy lines, and of Yuri's unspoken dream to set his brother free from the organization that owns them, body and soul.