to be young and in love (Otayuri AU)

three

„ Yuri your table is waiting!"

Yuri cursed as he slipped up his eyeliner, causing the line to smudge. „Calm down, my shift doesn't start for another five minutes." He barked back through the closed bathroom door of the Diner before he went to wipe the eyeliner away. He only recently had started applying very thin lines on the outer corner of his eyes so his lashes looked even longer than they already were but he hadn't perfected the technique yet. And he would rather die than asking one of his female colleagues for help, they were talking enough about him as it was. Yuri knew that most of it was just jealousy anyway and it made sense, he was younger, better looking and made more tips so he decided to not feed the flame and keep his mouth shut.

Yuri reapplied the eyeliner carefully and added some light pink lipgloss. No matter how long he lived here, people would still turn their heads and whisper when he walked passed them but Yuri didn't care, he liked how he looked and so did the tourists that came through their small down and stopped at the Diner to eat.

When he had fist started working at the Diner at 15, his Boss had taken him aside on one of the rare occasions when he was visiting the Diner to see how things were going.

„ Are you playing dress-up, kid? I have a business to run here." He had asked, gesturing to Yuri's revealing jean-shorts.

„ I am working, Sir." Yuri had answered, using all his strength to sound polite.

„ And since when are boys wearing makeup to work?" He had hissed.

„ Since pretty boys make more money." Yuri had batted his eyelashes even tho he had felt more like rolling his eyes at his ignorance.
But this was just how it was, a small town in the Russian Suburbs and most people here were still stuck in 18-hundred-ask-me-if-I-give-a-fuck.

And after Yuri had proven his statement to be true, his Boss had left him alone to wear whatever he wanted. And he didn't care about the gossip of his colleagues or any townsman.

„Yuri!" His colleague Petra banged on the bathroom door again.

„ I'm coming woman! God it can't be that busy out there if you come here every minute to get on my nerves." Yuri smoothed out his light pink apron that he wore over his jeans and took one last glance into the mirror. The longer his legs got, the smaller it looked on him. All waitresses wore the same apron over their clothes but he was the only male working here as a waiter.

They had laughed that he had to wear the frilly pink thing, at least until they realized that he looked cuter in it than they did.

Yuri bursted out of the bathroom and went straight to the kitchen to get some plates to serve, ignoring Petra's bickering behind him while doing so. After a year of working here, he knew that she wouldn't say anything that interested him anyway.

Yuri had always been used to not having much money and when he moved in with his Grandpa, he didn't expect big birthday presents to begin with, he knew that money was short but he didn't need much to begin with. He tried to earn most of the money for his dance lessons anyway and he found second hand clothes prettier than the brand clothes that everyone wore.
But when Nikolai's knee had needed surgery two years ago and forced him to stop working entirely that was when money got really, really short. So Yuri took every job the could get his hands on after school until he was lucky enough to get this one at the Diner. The work was hard and made his arms and feet ache from running around and carrying trays from after school until the sun was long gone but the payment was okay and the tips rose depending on how much Yuri tried to please the customers.

Only weeks after staring to work here, Yuri had figured out that his useless mother did give him some good life advice even it was a bit dodgy to follow them as a young teenage boy.