no worries! i love the sound of all of this and it's funny because he had a weird catfishing incident in high school so i feel like if we went the route of it starting out online everyone in his life would be like sigh not again... thinking ari was just another creep trying to get his money and not yuli's actual best friend. but then when they finally met in real life he could be like HA see he's real and cool as shit. i think he'd be the closest to him and ari would be the only one he's talked to about his mother who vanished when he was little. his adoptive family is russian as well and they can be somewhat tough love but they would've welcomed another stray into the fold pretty easily. although i do see that he moved to tacoma after being kicked out and not portland which is where i have yulian based for high school - would that be something you'd be able to tweak? if not i'd still love to do the whole online friendship turned real idea!