It's not as if Katsudon's a particularly good liar, when all is said and done. His stupidly pleased face and oddly delighted voice make Yuri really want to believe him -- with a need so strong that it's almost unnerving, because why should he actually care so much about any of this? And yet somehow, even what seems like an honest answer makes Yuri feel as if he really had been eating ground glass, alongside the rice and noodles and vegetables he's been swallowing all evening. An ache deep in his gut, a vaguely sick feeling, a soreness in the back of his throat. It feels wrong, where it should feel right.

He hadn't been there. Hadn't seen Viktor's expression, or watched him eat it.

Is a gift good enough, if it's second-hand? Is it worth it, if you can't know for certain how it was received?

All of this lies behind and beneath the pinched caution of Yuri's expression, and the slightly too long pause before he replies. 'Okay,' he says at last, which feels like the lamest thing ever, but it's all he can manage to start with. A small nod, then he swallows, and nods again more firmly. 'If you say so. If you saved it for him, and he ate it...that's what counts.'