Hello everyone!

So here I am, trying my hand at some Yuri on Ice fanfic. I've been playing around with this idea for a little while now so I hope you all really enjoy it.

Any and all comments, complaints, suggestions and love are very welcome but I'm pretty new to anime/manga/BL so please be kind!

Happy reading!

Rex

Chapter 01

Michael and I had been together since we were 15. We met when he transferred to my Boarding School when we were 14 and it was clear to both of us what simmered under our skins. We kept our relationship quiet until we started at the same university and made the decision to live together on campus.

Michael was fun and outgoing, more than making up for my social awkwardness whenever we were invited to parties. Unlike myself, he quickly found his clique in his classes and he was soon leaving me behind to spend time with his new friends. I never begrudged him for it but there were times that our relationship felt like one of convenience rather than love. There were times when he would come home in the middle of the night not knowing his own name, times when he wouldn't come home at all and times when he would expect affection and at the end cry out a name that wasn't my own.

Looking back on it, I'm not entirely sure why we stayed together. I tried many times to end it but Michael would always promise to do better, to prove just how much he loved me. He would cry and shout and always ended with I can't live without you. I fell for it every time.

It had been three months since Michael walked out. It was just short of our 10 year anniversary. His reasons behind his decision were as dismissive and flaky as his excuses always were. "It's not you, it's me." "We're different people now." "You'll do better without me." "We need space to grow." I hated him more for his practised lines than I did for leaving me.

"Have you heard from him?" Phichit asked as he filled two glasses of wine.

Phichit was my best friend from university and he was really one of the only people to know Michael almost as long as I had. They never liked each other but they always put their differences aside for my sake. Neither one could understand my relationship with the other and I spent a lot of my time defending them both. When I called Phichit after Michael walked out, I felt ashamed but Phichit held me, let me cry and never once said I told you so. If it had been the other way around, if Phichit had hurt me, Michael would have rubbed it in and told me I was stupid for not believing all the things he said. It was times like these that you understood who your friends are.

"No," I said as I opened the box of pizza that had just been delivered. "And I don't want to."

"Good for you," Phichit slapped me on the back. "He'll just find a way to persuade you to give him another chance and I've said it before and I'll say it again, you deserve better."

I smiled. "You're right, I do." Phichit had sat me down many times over the years, usually when Michael was cheating, and tried to help me see sense when it came to my no good boyfriend. He had never been very successful. "I'm done with him. I won't ever listen to his excuses again and I certainly won't take him back. Not this time."

"I'll drink to that!" Phichit lifted his glass and toasted to it with a giggle. "When is the rest of your stuff coming?"

We both looked around my sparse little flat I'd move into a few weeks ago. It was very different to the home I had built with Michael and I was devastated about leaving. "Tomorrow."

"This is just temporary," Phichit reminded me. "Just make sure you unpack everything as soon as you get it. And make sure you put up all those photos I brought with me and all that stuff from IKEA. It will feel more like home when you do."

I wrapped my arm around Phichit's shoulders and pressed a kiss to his temple. "You're a good friend, Phichit."

"I'm the best," he corrected me with a grin.

"I think I'm going to start job hunting," I said all of a sudden as I handed him a slice of pizza and picked one up for myself. "If I stay at the art shop I'll see Michael all the time when he's on his lunch break."

"What are you thinking of?" Phichit asked.

"I saw a job at the Portrait Gallery and I thought I'd apply for it," I explained. "It's a role for a new Assistant Curator."

"At least you'll finally be able to put that Art History Degree to good use," Phichit laughed.

"And I'll earn enough to put away some savings," I said. "Maybe next year I can find somewhere nicer to live."

The conversation soon turned to mindless topics, the kind that Phichit was very good at when I needed to be distracted. He made me laugh and for a few hours I forgot about Michael and the tiny flat I could never call my home.

As much as I was enjoying my time with my best friend, he eventually had to leave.

"Are you ok here on your own?" He asked as he slipped his coat on and collected his bag.

"It's strange," I admitted. "Not because of the flat but because... well... this is the first time I've lived alone... lived without... him."

"You'll get used to it," Phichit hugged me. "Hey, maybe you should get a dog."

I laughed. "I can only just fit my stuff in here, I wouldn't be able to fit a dog too."

"Just get a little one," Phichit waved his hand in the air. "One of those little scrappy things that you can fit in your bag."

I laughed again. "I'll look into it."

"Come out with us this weekend, ok?" Phichit said as he opened the door. He was referring to his roommates Guang-Hong and Leo. Saturday nights were usually spent at the cheap restaurant where Phichit worked a part time job in the kitchen and then onto a bar where Leo had a regular spot on the open mic.

"Maybe," I said with a shrug. "Text me when you're home."

"Call me if you need anything," Phichit hugged me one last time and left.

I was once again alone in my tiny flat. The silence was a little too much, I still wasn't used to it yet. I noticed that Phichit had left his Bluetooth speaker on the table for me and I smiled fondly. He was always taking such good care of me. I linked my phone up to it and put on some jazz, something Michael never allowed me to do. He hated my music. I poured the last of the wine into my glass and flopped down onto my sofa once again. I opened up my phone and began to scroll through my social media feeds but I stayed away from Instagram – I had no desire to see how everyone else's perfect lives were going. Facebook entertained me with videos of people doing stupid things until I caught sight of a dog rescue video.

Fluffy, as they had decided to call him, was a large dog. I suppose he resembled a husky. He had been found wandering the streets, living mostly under trucks in a parking lot and begging for scraps from the people that lived nearby. Eventually, someone had reported him to the local authorities and an animal charity had promptly come along to take him to a shelter. He had been friendly, quick to trust and was more than happy to be loaded into a car and taken away. It saddened me to think that at some point in his life, he had been treated well enough to have gotten used to scratches behind the ears and rides in a car. What had happened to him?

As it turned out, Fluffy was not a husky but merely a mutt. To my untrained eyes, he looked more like a wolf than a dog. He was well fed but in desperate need for a bath and a haircut. I could have sworn the young dog practically pranced around the room showing off his new look. He was adorable.

The final slide showed Fluffy chasing after a ball with two other dogs. The clip, with its happy music, was accompanied with the words "Fluffy has found his forever home."

Good for him.

-x-

My flat was still too quiet so when Saturday arrived, I took Phichit up on his offer to join him and the others for dinner. It had been a while since I'd seen Guang-Hong and Leo and while I initially worried that it would be awkward following my recent break up, it turned out to be exactly what I needed. They were both just as supportive as Phichit, even offering to help me with my job application for the art gallery and suggesting other evenings that I could spend with them. Just like Phichit, they wanted to keep me busy, distracted enough so that I wasn't wallowing in my own self pity. I had no idea how I would ever be able to repay their kindness.

"Phichit said you were going to get a dog," Leo said as another round of cocktails were put down in front of us.

I narrowed my eyes in Phichit's direction. "I said I would think about it."

"And have you?" Phichit asked.

"I think you should," Guang-Hong added. "Why not? Dogs are far better company than people anyway." We laughed. "Dogs won't cancel on you at the last minute!"

"Dogs won't promise to call when they never intend to," Leo winked.

"Dogs will listen to you when you've had a bad day," Phichit grinned.

"Dogs won't break your heart," I cringed at the sadness I heard in my own voice. I could feel my friends eyes on me, I didn't want them to feel sorry for me. I cleared my throat and continued before they could say anything. "Dogs are great but I'm just not sure now is the right time."

"If not now, then when?" Leo asked.

"If you're waiting for the right time, it will never happen," Guang-Hong pointed out. "There will always be something in the way that will stop you."

"You were talking about that dog from Facebook the other day. A lot!" Phichit laughed. "Maybe we can find you another stray. What was the place called again?"

I couldn't remember the name of the charity or the shelter but it wasn't difficult to find the video again. "Hey, it says he's up for adoption," Guang-Hong said excitedly.

"It must be an old video," I said. "In the video I saw it said he'd been adopted.

Leo got out his phone and after a few minutes he passed it over to me. "Looks like he was returned to the shelter."

I stared at the phone and at the photo of the adorable dog beaming up at the camera, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and his bright blue eyes sparking in the sunlight. He really was beautiful. His grey fur looked so soft and for a moment I saw myself coming home from a long day and running my fingers through his thick coat as he came to greet me at the door.

"That looks like love," Phichit teased.

"The video I saw must have been old," I said as I scrolled through the website. "He's been returned three times in two months..."

"It also says that if they don't find a foster home or another shelter, they'll have to put him down..." Guang-Hong said from behind his own phone.

"What?!" I snatched the phone from his hand. "Where does it say that?"

"In the staff comments on the side," he said, leaning over the table and pointing to it on his phone.

"I..." I looked up at my friends. "I can't let them put him down."

Phichit grinned. "Yuuri's getting a dog," he said in a sing-song voice.

I looked back down at the two phones and stared at the dog again. There was something about him, something that drew me to him. There was a feeling in my gut that told me I couldn't allow the shelter to put him down. I also wouldn't have been able to live myself if I had sat by and done nothing to help.

"Maybe I'll foster him," I said, my grin matching the others. "If we get on well, maybe I'll adopt him."

It would just be temporary until we found his forever home. Just temporary.

As I stood outside the shelter with Phichit at 10am the next morning, something told me this wasn't going to be temporary at all. And I didn't really mind.

So there it is, the first chapter!

This fic will be filled with humour, drama, romance, smut, angst... basically a little bit of everything. So I hope you've enjoyed it and that you'll check back in for more soon.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so do feel free to leave a review/comment or send me a PM – I love making new friends!

Thanks for reading xxx