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“I slept with a girl last week.”
Shiro choked on his food. The chopsticks in his hand, just moments before expertly wielding rice to his mouth, might as well have become two wet noodles between his fingers. He took a deep breath and carefully laid them across the top of his bowl.
Keith was not one for so much politeness. He let his chopsticks fall messily onto the cafeteria tray. His bowl was empty anyhow, whereas Shiro had just sat down and started. Keith regarded him warily. “Of all the food you could eat in your last week, you choose rice,” he said dryly.
Shiro huffed. “I like rice.”
Keith gave him a deadpan stare. “You’re going to be living on MRE’s for the better part of a year.”
Shiro sighed and picked up his chopsticks. “I like rice,” he repeated. Keith seemed to let the matter go. “And anyway, maybe we should back up a bit, to the part where you—” He gestured with his free hand.
“I had sex,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to say to someone over lunch. Completely unprompted, but that was too Keith-like for Shiro to find that part strange. “With a girl.” He seemed hell set on the clarification.
Shiro shoveled down some rice, processing what Keith had just said. There was something in the way he said it that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He chewed at his food for a moment. “Congratulations?”
Keith frowned. “Thank you?”
“I mean—” Shiro furrowed his brow. Keith often needed clarification, because he was by far more terrible at reading conversational cues than social cues in general. “I’m happy for you?” Shiro tried.
In any case, Keith seemed to catch on. “Oh, yes.” He still frowned. “Thank you.”
They fell into an awkward silence. Shiro focused on his meal to try and avoid Keith’s unnerving gaze. He wanted to enjoy it because, as Keith had said, it would be one of his last good ones for a long while. He also wanted to enjoy Keith’s company, though, because Keith was probably one of the people Shiro would miss more than anyone, this awkward conversation be damned.
Keith won out and Shiro sighed, pushing his tray to the side. He couldn’t do both. And then he waited, until Keith was ready to continue.
“I didn’t particularly like it,” Keith told him at last. “With a girl, I mean.”
Oh. Oh . Shiro blinked stupidly. “Oh,” he managed. Keith was coming out to him.
Shiro supposed it was the sort of thing that, as someone so close to Keith—perhaps the closest person to Keith of anyone , he wasn’t really one for friends—that he should have seen it coming. But Keith had never once showed any interest at all in others, not in the romantic or physical or sexual sense. Opposite sex or otherwise.
Shiro had decided early on that nothing about Keith was his business unless Keith wanted it to be his business. Now he’d suddenly decided to make this his business and Shiro didn’t really know what to say.
The only other person that had ever really come out to him had been Matt, and Matt had done so by drunkenly climbing into his lap and pressing himself against him. Very different situation from the one he found himself in now.
Keith stared at him, waiting. Fuck. “That’s good—” Wait, no. Shit. “I mean. It’s okay. That you’re gay.”
What was he really supposed to say in a situation like this?
Babble was apparently the correct answer. “You shouldn’t feel ashamed, or anything. Being gay is good. It’s fine .” He took a deep breath. “I accept you?”
“Stop.”
Shiro snapped his mouth closed.
“You’re terrible at this.” Keith snatched up his chopsticks and stabbed them about his bowl, poking at whatever little bit was left of his food. Terrible etiquette. “I know it’s fine.” He pointed the utensils at Shiro. “ You’re gay.”
“Bi.”
“Okay. Bi . But in any case, you fuck dudes.”
The conversation was taking a more horrifying turn by the second. Shiro flushed red and glanced about. “Sometimes?” he managed weakly. It was a pretty accurate definition of what it meant to be bi. Kind of .
Keith looked down at his bowl. His idle motions with the chopsticks had become a rhythmic click clack against the ceramic. “It was a bit disappointing.”
Shiro’s throat tightened. “Keith—”
“I only mean, I suppose I would have liked to give her a—” Keith chewed at his lip. “A good time?”
He didn’t so much as blush, whereas Shiro’s face was approaching a bright shade of crimson. He was certain of it.
“A better time?” Keith tried, looking up at last. “But I think she understood. She said she understood.” He met Shiro’s eyes, seeking confirmation.
“I’m sure she did.”
Keith nodded.
The conversation was left hanging, Shiro staring at Keith, Keith staring back at him. Shiro had the sudden feeling there was somewhere else Keith had wanted to go with this, but Keith didn’t himself seem to know it. Maybe he didn’t remember. Shiro watched as he bit at his lip again.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Keith said. “I wanted you to know.” He looked away and Shiro cursed his own awkward silence.
“Hey, you can tell me anything, Keith,” he said quickly. Keith met his eyes again and they were soft. Shiro smiled. “I mean it, anything at all. I’ll always be here for you.”
Keith shook his head though. “Not always.”
“Keith—”
He was interrupted. “You’re leaving next week, Shiro.”
Shiro’s stomach sank. Was that what this was really all about? His smile fell. “But I’ll be back, Keith,” he explained. “Before you even know it.”
Keith stared at him, brow pinched in what was maybe confusion. “I know that.”
Okay, so it wasn’t about that. Shiro slid his tray back over and carefully resumed his lunch of now cold rice. Still better than the coming MRE’s. He savored every bite, watching Keith, who had resumed watching his empty bowl as if it held the secrets to the universe.
“You have sex with dudes,” he echoed, lifting his head and Shiro managed not to choke this time.
“ Yes , Keith,” he said, exasperated.
Keith smiled. “So you would have sex with me ?”
Shiro gaped at him like a fish and Keith rushed to continue, nearly tripping over his words.
“I mean, would you like to have sex with me?”
Shiro hesitated. Keith was attractive, certainly, and Shiro couldn’t say he hadn’t ever thought about it—about him, like that . He could feel his face heat up but he forced himself to maintain eye contact.
Keith resumed the tapping with the chopsticks and the steady clackclackclack of hard plastic on ceramic made Shiro grit his teeth—it was suddenly nails on a chalkboard to his ears. His heart raced and he took a careful breath.
Keith seemed to realized himself and stopped abruptly. “It won’t hurt my feelings,” he said. “If you say no.”
Shiro wasn’t entirely certain if his answer was no, though. He licked his lips and looked his friend over, considering. Keith was attractive. Well put together. The lines of his uniform were crisp and freshly pressed, his hair recently cut. And all Shiro could now think of was the sight of that uniform crumpled on his floor, Keith’s black hair fisted in his hand, twined around his fingers.
Keith stood, grabbing up his tray; He’d decided he was done with the conversation.
“Wait.” Shiro bit his lip, face flushed. “Yes?”
Keith stared at him.
“ Yes ,” Shiro said again. His voice cracked on the word. “Yes, I would—Uhh, like to . I would like to.”
Keith grinned. “Okay. I’ll come by your room later.”