5

As she knew would be the case, Victor had recovered by the morning. Overnight, Yuuri had crept back into their bed and they woke up face-to-face with each other. When Makkachin saw the adoration light up Yuuri's face, she knew Victor would be okay.

She hopped off their bed and left them to it. Weddings were a big deal.
Most of Makkachin's morning was spent trying to help as best she could – moving shoes to the right rooms, nudging out ties from beneath piles of dirty clothes, and the like. She almost missed Phichit slipping into Seung-Gil's room.
Almost.
She slipped in behind him and jumped on the bed, rousing Seung-Gil.
He sat up, his hair a mess, blearily rubbing sleep from his eyes.
'Seung-Gil.' Phichit looked unwell. He had dark circles under his eyes and there was a muscle in his jaw twitching.
'…Phichit?'
'You can't run away from this, you know. You can't just avoid me at every competition we enter from now on. I'm not going to put my life on hold while you work around your hangups, Seung-Gil.' Phichit massaged his temples.
'I…' Seung-Gil seemed less defensive, having just woken up. 'You…'
'So you can either spit it out, or we can stand here all morning. Why do you suddenly hate me?'
Seung-Gil reached to take a sip from the cup of water by his bedside. Makkachin saw how badly his hands were trembling. She nuzzled closer to him.
'I…'
'Well?' Makkachin blinked at Phichit. She noted never to get on his bad side. He was quite scary when annoyed.
Seung-Gil carefully pulled Makkachin onto his lap and began gently untangling her curls with his fingers.
'I… don't… hate you. ' Seung-Gil wasn't making eye contact, his face dropping lower and lower until his nose almost brushed Makkachin's fur. 'Actually, I… I, um. I like you.' He was mumbling into Makkachin's fur, his words mostly vibration against her skin.
'What? I can't hear you.'
'I… likeyou.' Seung-Gil looked as though he was trying to burrow underneath Makkachin and hide completely.
Phichit let out a dramatic groan and flung himself into the desk chair. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes.
'I thought you hated me! I've been up all night trying to work out what I did to upset you!' When Phichit looked up, his eyes were full of tears. 'I thought you must've had a traumatic experience with sparklers or something!'
Seung-Gil let out a short, wet, laugh.
'But you- why did you react so badly because you like me?'
Seung-Gil shook his head.
'I've not- I've never really… felt like that before.' He hid his face in Makkachin's fur again. She once more thanked her makers for her tear-absorbent curls. Phichit swung himself out of the chair and put his arm around Seung-Gil.
'It's okay, you know? I wasn't going to push you. I meant what I said about going slow.' Seung-Gil shook his head.
'I-no. That's not the problem.' He looked Phichit straight in the eyes. 'I don't want to go slow.'
Phichit burst out laughing, and pressed his forehead against Seung-Gil's. They leant in close, their noses brushing, before-
'Fifteen minutes, folks! You need to get a shift on!' Mari was banging on the stairs. A cacophony of movement erupted with her announcement.
'Shit!' Seung-Gil leapt out of bed and into the bathroom, dragging his suit hanger with him.
He emerged seven minutes later, his hair still a mess and his buttons done up wrong. Phichit grabbed his comb and handed it to Seung-Gil.
'You get the hair, I'll do the buttons.'
'Buttons?'
'You've-' Phichit gestured down his front.
'Shit.'

Fifteen minutes after Mari's announcement, the front hallway was full of guests. Emil was still struggling to wedge on his shoes, and Mila was fixing her hair in the nearest reflective surface, bobby pins hanging out of her mouth. Seung-Gil was back to his regular, stoic self, but even from where Makkachin was standing by Mari she was sure they were brushing fingers.

The wedding proper passed by in a blur. Makkachin had the important job of carrying the rings, but other than that she could only remember the look of joy on her Victor's face as he was finally pronounced married. In the car back to Hasetsu for the reception, she snuggled happily on her masters' laps, properly covering them in fur. So that everyone knew who was in this family.

She made a point to immediately tackle Yurio in the same manner at the reception.
She'd had to do it quickly – after spending a good ten minutes staring in wonder at all Victor's aunts in their aggressively co-ordinated leopard-print outfits, Yurio followed through on his plans to leave when the dancing started, shadowed by Otabek. As she watched them leave, she hoped Yurio would find the board games she'd pulled out of the closet and stacked haphazardly on his bed.
And she hoped he'd find all the pieces that fell out of the different boxes when she'd been carrying them. They were all under his bed.

Leo had put together the music. It was a bizarre mixture of skating tunes, his own compositions, a handful of JJ's, and some odd pop music every now and then. Makkachin thought it fit their motley crew of friends well.
She got to meet a lot more of her Yuuri's friends at the reception. His old coach, who smelt delicious and who sneaked her leftovers from his meal was a new favourite, and the tiny boy with the flicky hair – who had cried tears of joy when he saw how happy Yuuri was – gave good pats. He would make a fine skating pat minion.

JJ hadn't crashed any wedding speech, thankfully. Instead, he turned slowly in the corner of the dancefloor, whispering sweet nothings into Isabella's ear. She had her head resting on his shoulder, her arms tight around him. Whenever the disco lights caught her engagement ring, she smiled.
Guang-Hong and Leo, too, were slow-dancing on the floor. Without the experience of JJ and Isabella, though, they were stumbling all over the place. Guang-Hong kept trying to take as much of Leo's weight as possible, but he wasn't as strong as he wanted to be, and so they nearly toppled over several times.
It was adorable.
(In small doses.)
Sara and Michele had proved their mettle when the dancing was serious – their compatibility as pair skaters meant they blew most other couples out of the water – but once the party had started to die down, Sara had retreated to the corner to dance in a circle with Mila and Mari. Yuuko sat close to them, but she was laden with two exhausted triplets on her lap. Michele had stood at the side for a while, keeping an eye on his sister from afar, before Emil pulled him outside.
Through the window (though she'd never tell) Makkachin could still see them. They'd probably had too much to drink. Michele kept stepping on Emil's toes and hanging off him, laughing boisterously when Emil spun him around. Emil was still careful with him, though. Even drunk, he held his arms out to keep Michele safe, and caught him whenever he tripped.
It would make a fantastic Instagram photo, if only Phichit were around.

He was busy, though.

Out on one of the narrow balconies, Phichit and Seung-Gil stood close to each other. Neither was dancing to the music, though Makkachin was sure their pulses thrummed as loud.
She watched Seung-Gil hesitate, then determinedly lean forward to catch Phichit's mouth in a careful kiss. She looked away when Phichit wrapped his arms around Seung-Gil.
Makkachin trotted back through the reception to the corner where Chris and his boyfriend were curled, cooing at each other in German.
'Hello, beautiful lady.' Chris opened his arms for her. 'You've been a busy girl, haven't you?' He crooned at her, smoothing her fur down her back. She wriggled close to his warmth. Matchmaking was tiring work, and she'd hardly stopped the past five days. 'Good girl.'
Before she let herself nap, she looked around for her Victor and Yuuri. Victor was sitting on a table, letting Yuuri feed him a bite of cake.
It just seemed, at that moment, that everything was how it should be.

And that's a wrap! Hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! :D