Yuri on Ice, Hamster in Kazakh is Still Hamster

Title: Hamster in Kazakh is Still Hamster [Yuuri, Yuri, Otabek]
Rating/Warnings: G
Summary: Otabek is terrible at social media, but his hamster’s cuteness means that doesn’t matter.
AN: Written for Shiritori. Otabek has a hamster. I’m sure of it. In case you ever need to know this, hamsters are endemic to Kazakhstan. ENDEMIC. Somewhere, Phichit is dying.

Hamster in Kazakh is Still Hamster

Otabek is terrible with his phone (and social media and the internet) but the black blob he sends Yuri a picture of with no explanation is even worse than usual. Yuri turns his phone left, then right. It’s still a blob.

[the fuck is that?] he asks.

[It’s my hamster] comes the prompt response, as if Otabek has been sitting there waiting expressly for Yuri’s answer. Yuri clicks the picture again and it sort of makes more sense now that he understands it’s furriness he’s looking at instead of the blur of Otabek’s shitty photography skills.

The next picture is better, the blob resolving itself into two bright eyes, two little bitty ears, and long whiskers. The hamster is entirely black, is the issue, except for the little pink paw sticking out from under it. Yuri abruptly realizes the first time Otabek had sent a picture of the hamster’s butt.

[dont send me pics of ur hamster butt!!] Yuri protests, making a noise of irritation.

[I wasn’t trying to. It moved. Hamsters do not like selfies.]

“You two will get along great then, won’t you?” Yuri snarls at the phone as he types back [since when do u have a ham star] and then [hamster fuck you autocorrect].

“Otabek?” Yuuri asks, leaning to look over Yuri’s shoulder. Yuri clicks the picture because it seems like the fastest way to get Yuuri off his back and back to peeling the apple they’re supposed to be snacking on. He is not expecting Yuuri to make a noise so high-pitched that Macachin lifts his head.

“CUTE,” Yuuri exclaims with a bizarre amount of enthusiasm, in Yuri’s opinion. “What’s its name?”

[whats its name] Yuri types grudgingly.

[Mishka] is the answer, of fucking course, which Yuri repeats for Yuuri’s sake because he’s still too dumb to sound out half the Cyrillic letters right. “It means little bear.” It’s a disgustingly cute name for Otabek’s disgustingly adorable hamster. Yuri pictures stoic, straight-faced Otabek with the hamster calmly sitting on his head and throws up in his mouth a little.

Yuuri is blathering something incomprehensible, half in Japanese, and Yuri eyes him coldly until Yuuri catches himself and repeats.

“Have to show Phichit, he’ll die,” Yuuri says. “Send me…no wait, can you just instagram that, it’s faster.”

“He can do it himself,” Yuri grumbles, which is true assuming Otabek hasn’t deleted the app, but Yuri spent a very painful weekend in Almaty forcing him to learn how, so he better fucking not have. [instagram the furball, katsudon wants to show chulanont]

There’s a long pause, and then [all right. I think.]

“It’s up,” Yuri says, not offering anymore help than that. Yuuri is already digging it up with efficient flicks of his fingers as he scrolls to Yuri’s last post, clicks through to dig up Otabek’s, and links Phichit, all before Yuri can distractedly scroll down to the post himself.

The caption on it reads just “This is my hamster.” By the time Yuri rolls his eyes, it already has three likes and a reply from Yuuri (“CUTE (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧”), and a split-second later there’s one from Phichit which is basically incoherent screaming.

Yuri also clicks to like. He feels obligated. Because they are friends. It’s not because he likes the hamster.

“I didn’t even know they had hamsters in Kazakhstan!” Yuuri is saying, still happily blathering away at the same time he’s typing away on his phone, and none of this is getting Yuri his apple slices any faster. Fuck Japanese hospitality. He’s telling Yuuri’s mother on him. “Hey, Phichit wants to know if you think it would be already for him to friend him.”

[chulanont wants to know] Yuri starts typing and then stops because this is fucking ridiculous. “What the fuck are you asking me for?! Ask him! Tell your weirdo hamster friend to ask him himself! Do those two even have a language in common?”

Yuuri opens his mouth, pauses, then closes it with a frown and goes back to texting furiously.

[I think Chulanont has just asked if we can be friends. Is that all right? I believe he just wants to talk about hamsters.]

[I DONT CARE] Yuri sends back, and then he tosses his phone halfway across the tatami because he’s entirely done with every part of this experience.

“Awwww, he posted another one!” Yuuri exclaims, sticking his phone in Yuri’s face despite Yuri’s fierce glare and the fact that he obviously just threw his own phone across the room. “I should friend him too.”

“Don’t get used to it, he instagrams like twice a year,” Yuri informs Yuuri before he gives in and just looks at the screen. That fucking hamster is so cute it should die.

“This is my hamster.” this one reads. “It is eating a seed.”

Yuri flops over on his stomach and starts crawling for his phone because for fuck’s sake somebody has to teach Otabek how to tag properly, ugh.

“Oops,” Yuuri says suddenly, and Yuri doesn’t even have time to ask what before they both hear Victor’s squeal of pure delight from halfway across the Katsuki family home.

Yuri wrinkles his nose up fiercely and tells Otabek [this is all ur fault]