#it kinda started with: phichit and yuuri can speak each other languages because besties

[xanyxhi]

It is one of my headcanons that both Phichit and Yuuri are, in fact, polyglots (Yuuri blames Phichit). I wanna say super-polyglots too, but that probably applies to one of them, probably Phichit.

Both boys went to America to train, so they each have English down first.

Now imagine both of them being the only international figure skaters at the moment in that particular rink, moving from so far away following their dreams. They bonded, eventually. So Phichit gets the brilliant idea of learning some japanese to help his new bff with his homesickness. Yuuri, touched by this, vows to do the same and goes and learns thai (Phichit was more than happy to teach him)

And what? Turns out they aren’t that slow learning the basics? They are actually pretty good?

“hey Yuuri, since we are at it, let’s learn some Italian too because our coach is prone to rant in Italian every now and then when he thinks no one can hear him, might as well know what is he saying…”

And Yuuri, bless him and his fanboy heart, was already learning some Russian for a while on his own for years because it was, like, the only way to get news on Viktor because not everything was always translated into English, much less Japanese. So he decided to take some actual classes while in college since they were offered

Phichit finds it kinda adorable, tbh. And because he didn’t want to have one less language than his bff, he goes and learns, say, Portuguese or something.

But guys, they are living in America, and the other language that seems to be almost everywhere is Spanish, and some of the other skaters at the rink are either hispanic, or have some roots, or have that one member in their family that knows zero English and more or less grew up hearing it. And since Italian and Spanish are similar since they share the same latin origin, well, they also pick it up too because why not, right? Though they do admit some accents or variations are just unintelligible to them, but they get fluent enough eventually… It also helps in not feeling as bad about it when sometimes they don’t understand it when even natives say they can’t understand a word some other people are saying because all the accents and regionalisms are things from nightmares.

Yuuri put his foot down, however, into learning Chinese because he remembers his early years when learning kanji and no thank you *shudders* (Besides, he doesn't think his hand (and brain) can recover from Thai, he reaaally should have known better about learning how to write it). He does get some basics down, speaking only, mostly because he had to live with the thai skater mumbling it when he was learning it and it just stuck (it is until muuuuch later that he learns Phichit did it for Guang-Hong because he found the guy to be very sweet and figured he had to introduce him to social media one way or the other)

"Hey Yuuri, ever thought about Korean? Some say the alphabet is not that hard to remember..."

"I bet you can't learn how to write arabic without tripping like you did with Thai"

One thing leads to another and next thing they know, they are both expanding to beyond spoken/written/official languages, they learn morse code and/or gallifreyan, because Phichit thought it would be hilarious to see if they could include some hidden message in the their step sequences or something when skating (they can’t, the less is said about the matter the better.)

Someone saw them fooling around and jokingly said “you guys, wanna try sign language next?”

Jokes on him/her/them though, because guess what happens next time? and "OMG!!! I WAS JOKING!!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!!? KATSUKI I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE SENSIBLE ONE!!!"

The best though?

Almost no one knows this. Only Celestino knows, truthfully, mostly because he had to put up with them for years and their stints at learning languages after languages (and he won't tell because he's not one for gossip, and because a part of him actually finds the entire thing hilarious when other people assume they can't understand them)

It's not like they go around saying: "i know how to speak at least 8 languages fluently-not counting any fictional one-,some days I lose count. I also have the basics in another 3 or so... and I know at least three variations of sign language. Between Yuuri and I, we have probably more than 15 different ones since we didn't always learn the same ones"

people just don't ask them, really

Guang Hong knows Phichit knows some Chinese. He also knows Yuuri knows some Thai. From Leo, it is also known they both understand Spanish, and Yuri suspects Katsudon actually knows some Russian

They probably find out eventually, though, most likely gradually, by accident and/or in hilarious situations...