Chapter Text
When they didn't find Shiro inside the black lion, Keith took a small step back. He was suddenly conscious of all the sounds around him, of the worried voices of the other palladins, of the magical hum of the castle. Then Coran. Then Allura; Allura trying to rein the situation in, the voice of officiality and composure.
"Paladins," she was saying, and her mouth was moving and sound was coming out but Keith couldn't really understand any of it. Everything that came to his ears was garbled and off-putting, a hazy nonsense like the sounds of the broken radio his dad used to sing along to.
Keith remembered the static of the radio well. He remembered the warped voices and his childhood attempts to find their words among the noise. Maybe he'd failed because he didn't know the language all that well, because his father himself didn't even know it all that well and because his father's father, who liked to teach him and lecture him about all the culture that he wasn't being exposed to, had gone back to Korea a while ago and they'd lost all contact since.
And so for that reason it had been mostly English in Keith's childhood, except for the radio and the singing, and he had always liked to think that it had something to do with his mother. That one day she had heard his father sing in Korean and she'd fallen love. That the radio was playing, this time clear and unbroken and staticless, clean through the air, and she'd wandered up to the house and she'd stopped and listened, caught up by the beauty of it. Caught up by the soft sounds and petals - because Keith always imagined petals - and a slight breeze that made her feel like something important was happening.
Then she waited there, dazed, and didn't notice his father had exited the house and was staring straight at her.
Or at least that's what Keith liked to think. What he used to think before he learned he was Galra and his entire self-concept shifted. These days he couldn't even remember his father's voice. All that remained of him was the dusty radio and its incomprehensible discord.
"Keith."
"Keith."
It was Lance, his hand on Keith's shoulder, the other on Pidge's.
"Look, we're going to find Shi-"
But Keith brushed his hand off and he was already leaving. He needed to be alone right now. He was still hearing the radio static, hearing Shiro telling him he wanted him to be leader.
"Keith," Lance called. "Wait, I-"
He was trying to go after him, Hunk just behind and prepared to help. But Allura shook her head.
"Let him be," she said calmly, placing herself between the remaining paladins and the door.
Although Keith didn't say anything to her, he was grateful.
------
When Lance got to his room, he couldn't stop thinking about the expression on Keith's face. The faraway look of reminiscence, of loss. He'd seen it before, certainly. On Pidge when she was thinking about her family. On Allura and Coran when they thought of King Alfor and the whole of Altea. On Shiro after all that had happened to him.
And Lance had known Keith long enough to see that expression in him, as subtle as it was, with the one eyebrow slightly furrowed and his mouth a simple line.
The first time Lance had seen him like that was at the Garrison. He'd been looking for Hunk in the mechanics workshop, but was surprised to see Keith there instead. The boy who he called his rival. The most promising pilot in the Garrison in spite of his temper (but most likely because of it).
And there he'd been. Keith Kogane, sitting in one of the ships, eyes in a lull staring at the grey metallic ceiling. That expression on his face.
Lance had gotten used to staring at him like this. From afar. All silence.
But then Keith began humming, or singing, or something in between, and the sound of half-words reverbrated throughout the workshop.
It was some kind of love song, Lance could tell, even if he didn't understand a single word, and he found himself so drawn to Keith's lonely voice that he half-closed his eyes, head resting against the wall, and listened.
He'd never seen Keith in such a state, not once in all the secret glances, all the aimless walks throughout the Garrison hoping to run into him. This was something new to Lance.
For a while, he was able to forget everything that worried him. He could no longer hear the laughter and ridicule of his classmates after he'd made a mistake or the harsh reprimands from the captain which echoed in his every move, assuring him he'd never amount to anything. At that moment, Lance forgot it all. The feeling of his face red hot in shame. Jokes spilling from his quick tongue. Words trying to salvage his worth. None of that, no.
Right now it was only him and the song and the boy singing it. Keith was all swift lips and melted words, a face that became softer at each chorus.
When it ended, Lance got up and quickly left the workshop, almost tripping over himself in the process, his legs swaying as he walked. He felt like he was coming up to the real world after a lifetime under water, and a barely noticeable smile had found its way onto his lips. The feeling of peace played itself repeatedly in his mind as he walked the long lighted corridors.
He wandered half-heartedly in search of Hunk for a while, muttering Keith's broken Korean to himself.
"Sarang-something, sarang-something," he whispered.
He almost wanted to tell Hunk about what he'd witnessed but knew that he couldn't. It was Keith's private moment, something too intimate to share. He should have never been spying on him in the first place.
But also, deep down in those selfish parts of his mind, Lance wanted to keep the experience to himself, safeguard it like the last cookie in the box.
"Sarang-something, sarang-something."