Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Man, not to be that person, but I think you need a distraction before you murder that poor parrot just by staring at it.”

Choking on the tea he has just offered his TA was not how Takashi Shirogane, Shiro for everyone except his students, had imagined leaving this mortal coil, especially after having survived the car accidents of car accidents, which is technically the reason why he’s on leave and he needs his TA to come by every other week to check over their students’ mid-terms.

“Lance, I’m not murdering the birdspawn of Hell that my mother thought would help me in my recovery.”

“You just called the poor thing birdspawn of Hell, I think it says everything about you needing to get out of the house and think about something other than finals. Here, I’m going to feed it before it rightfully bites your fingers to the point of bleeding.”

“Rightfully?”

“With the way you treat it, it has all the rights to be hostile.”

Shiro doesn’t even try to refute that point – he hates the damned bird, and if Lance wants to feed it in his place he’s entirely too welcome. Never mind that if Slav really bites his fingers to that point he’d be fucked to hell and back, since he did survive the accident but he came out of it with his right arm pretty much out of commission. While he can still somehow move it he can’t feel anything out of it, and the doctors have told him they won’t know whether he’ll regain some mobility before observing the situation for a few months. He just hopes he has some chance in hell of that actually happening.

Which is why he shouldn’t put extra effort in anything, which is why he’s dying of boredom instead, which is why his mother gifted him the damned parrot.

“Anyway, seriously,” Lance says after feeding the thing and coming back to the sofa, “you really need a distraction. Allura is worried because she says your e-mails apparently radiate frustration. Hunk told me to dump on you his triple-chocolate cupcakes, which are in the bag I left you in the kitchen, by the way, and you know that when he sends over the triple-chocolate cupcakes it means he thinks you’re in dire need of being cheered up. And he’s seen you once since you left the hospital. Maybe twice. I don’t know, but there has to be something you can do with your life before the next semester starts.”

Good point, Shiro has to concede. One reason he’s growing increasingly passive-aggressive and radiating frustration is that before the accident his work was… well, pretty much all his life, sad as it sounds, and now that he has nothing else to do he’s really growing stir-crazy.

“Yeah, except that I’m not supposed to, quote, put effort in anything, never mind that all the research I had to finish needs libraries, and until they clear me for lifting books, never mind that I can’t drive daily –”

“Shiro, not everything in life is experimental math. Here, there’s the cupcakes.”

Shiro feels his mouth water at the sight of the box – a lot of his colleagues did try to convince Hunk, who back in the day had just graduated in aerospace engineering, to stay in academia because he was that brilliant, and sometimes some of them will weep about the wasted potential, because why would you open a bakery when you’d make at least associate professor in a few years, but Shiro, who was Hunk’s thesis counselor for the math-related part of it, has never thought it was a total loss.

Or well, what was the Garrison’s loss was the gain of the entire university area, since the man can bake and the world is definitely a better place with his cupcakes in it. Or his pies. Or anything that comes out of Hunk’s hands.

“Thanks. I don’t know, it’s just, everything I used to do before required making use of this damned arm, and I can’t ask someone to drive me to the chess club in the next town over now, can I?”

He used to go, but the only bus that stops in front of his house and goes into town doesn’t arrive anywhere near the place.

“Well, your eyes lighted up when I showed up with midterms. Most of which weren’t fun to get through, cross my heart. Shiro, seriously, no one should look that happy at the thought of grading.”

“Hey, I like my job!”

“Then – dunno, teach some basic math classes for kids at the local library or something, but please get out of the house. And don’t murder the parrot.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just go through the grading, shall we?”

Lance huffs, sounding like someone who has agreed to leave the topic for now but who will not forget to bring it up as soon as he has a chance to.

Shiro grabs the first midterm and starts going through Lance’s corrections instead of wondering how long is that going to take.

--

Eventually, it’s not that bad – Lance is his TA because he’s good at math, after all, and after he leaves with all the midterms checked (he had only missed a couple of mistakes, but it was nothing someone who hasn’t been doing Shiro’s job for at least a couple years would get), Shiro leans back on the sofa and finally eats the first of the six cupcakes in the box while Slav croaks something unintelligible.

And he has to admit to himself that Lance was actually right.

He hasn’t left the house properly in two months, he’s really this close to murder the birdspawn from Hell and he’s so bored he could cry. He’s read some twenty-five novels by now, and he thinks he’s running out of books he hasn’t read in the house, and other than Lance and the maid who comes by once every couple of days to tidy and clean where he can’t manage, he barely sees anyone regularly.

This is not good.

Especially since he used to have a fairly decent social life before.

Too bad that Matt’s out for his sabbatical year because at least he’d have had someone to see daily, since they’re neighbors, but right now he’s rented the house to a few family friends until he’s back and it’s… February.

Yeah, he won’t get any luck on that side.

He’s considering whether he should just eat the second cupcake so that he can drown his self-pity in sugar when his cellphone rings. Shiro grabs it, wondering if Lance forgot something, but –

No. It’s his head of department. Strange, why would Allura call him on a Sunday afternoon? He shrugs and takes the call.

“Allura? Hello.”

“Shiro. How are you doing?”

He sighs. “The usual. Going stir-crazy. About to murder the parrot, according to Lance.”

“Shiro, one can feel your wish to end that poor creature’s life in your tone of voice. Anyway, that’s not what I was calling you for. Lance – well, last week he did say that according to him you needed a distraction, am I correct?”

Shiro sighs – of course Lance told her. Then again, even if he didn’t, Lance doesn’t have a good record when it comes to refusing Allura, both because she’s the head of the department and both because she can be terrifying when she wants to know something.

“You aren’t wrong. Why?”

“Because I think I have a solution for you,” she says. “Well, maybe. Do you remember my uncle Coran?”

“The head of that community college in town? Yeah, you mentioned him once or twice. Why?”

“Exactly. And – because, see, one of their math teachers had to ask for a leave for… urgent personal reasons, of course he could not disclose them, and when we talked a few days ago he was desperate because he needs a substitute.”

“They don’t have one already?”

“No. Or better, they have a waiting list, in theory, but let’s just say that they are in a fairly rough place financially and they cannot spare funds for another paycheck. And that math teacher was only working the GED course, he already was extra money they could barely afford.”

Shiro is starting to see where this is going.

“So he needs a free substitute?”

“Well, basically,” Allura says. “I thought you might be interested. I think the bus that stops in front of your house stops right in front of his college, as well, and the GED classes are… high school level. You could teach those with your eyes closed. Coran, of course, would provide you some help so that you don’t have to juggle books or papers and it could be a good distraction.”

Shiro thinks about it.

It’s not a bad idea.

After all, he gets paid even if he can’t technically work at least until the next school year, so he’s going to survive until he can go back to work, and he’s not in dire need of money. High school math would be enough of a distraction but not something stressful and it’s just one semester. And if he can go there with the bus, the transportation issue is solved.

And honestly, maybe a break from annoyed students who mostly take his class out of it being obligatory wouldn’t be that bad.

“You know,” he tells her, “leave me his number. I might want to hear this out.”

“Oh, great,” she says, “he’ll be so relieved. He was getting desperate. I will tell him that you might call soon then.”

“Please do, and thank you. I think I… really do need the change of air.”

“I can believe that. Look after yourself, all right? And do not kill that parrot. It’s cute.”

“You say so,” he mutters, and then notes down Coran’s number.

He calls that very evening – again, it’s not as if he has anything better to do than reading a book or watching a movie while the damned bird chatters his ear off. The moment he introduces himself, the man starts talking to him as if he was the closest thing to the Second Coming the universe has witnessed since then, which is probably far too much for teaching high school math for a semester, but Shiro supposes that if he’s competent and comes for free and they’re having budget issues, maybe he’s really saving their collective asses by helping them out.

Overexcitement notwithstanding, Coran sounds like a nice guy and at least he’s talking about the institution as if he really cares about it, which is more that could be said for Shiro’s old thesis advisor for one. They make plans to see each other in the afternoon the next day so he can take a look at the premises and make up his mind and for the first time since he woke up in a hospital without any feeling at all in his arm whatsoever Shiro goes to sleep without feeling a constant small cloud of dread hanging over his head.

--

The next day, he takes the bus – it indeed stops in front of the building in question. It’s a half-hour ride, Shiro times – not so bad, especially since he lives close to the end of the line and he most probably wouldn’t have to spend it standing. Never mind that he needs to leave the house more often, Lance was right – the moment he stayed out of it for more than fifteen minutes he felt like a new man, and that is slightly fucking worrying if he thinks about it for more than the bare necessary. Given that GED classes are usually in the afternoon or the evenings, he also wouldn’t need to take the bus at some ungodly hour in the morning, so it’s definitely going in the list of reasons why accepting this job is a good idea.

The building is definitely nothing like his campus. Well, just the fact that it’s a building rather than an entire complex should say all, but it’s obvious just from looking at the outside of the place that as much as it’s well-kept there’s dire need of renovations – a part of the external wall is cracked and the inscription outside is damaged. He takes a moment to inspect it better – it reads Altea Community College and someone definitely threw a few heavy rocks against it because the plastic has a few cracks in it, same as the wall.

“Excuse me, you must be Professor Shirogane?”

Shiro startles – he hadn’t heard anyone coming but yes, someone is at his left, and yes, the voice is definitely the same as the one he heard on the phone. Coran looks younger than his mid-forties, or so Allura said – for one, his red hair is definitely not dyed yet. He’s wearing a clean, neat blue suit with a pink tie that somehow doesn’t clash with the rest of the ensemble and he’s holding out his left hand. Shiro decides he likes the guy at once.

“Yes,” he says, shaking the man’s hand, “but just call me Shiro. I hate being too formal and only my mother calls me Takashi.”

“Good, no one here likes being too formal. Well, please follow me, I’ll show you the premises and explain the situation a bit better.”

“Of course. You said you only need someone for the GED math class, am I right?”

“Pretty much,” Coran confirms as he opens the door for Shiro and lets him in. The corridor inside is neat and clean, with a short white staircase leading to an elevator. Coran doesn’t head there, though; he turns right instead, taking another hallway. “It was indeed a urgent matter and he couldn’t do otherwise, and the person who has the actual college-level class has volunteered to run the mid-terms, but she can’t handle taking his place in the next semester. I wanted to show you the actual classroom before we go upstairs. I’m afraid you’ll find us very old-fashioned in comparison to the Garrison, but the funding is what it is.”

“I wasn’t expecting the Garrison,” Shiro replies truthfully.

“Well, good, but still. Here we go.”

Coran opens the fourth door in the corridor and –

Yeah, okay, Shiro gets it now. The Garrison has brand new desks and seats, an interactive whiteboard and a projector, and a computer on the side in every classroom should people need it. This room looks like… his old classroom from elementary school. A desk with a comfortable chair for the teachers, well-kept but old desks and chairs for the students, a regular blackboard with chalk only, no computer and surely no projector.

Still, it doesn’t look… decadent or anything and the room is tidy and well-kept, and honestly, he could do a lot worse.

“Well,” he says, “I guess the only problem I might have would be that writing on a blackboard with this arm might be an issue, but –”

“Oh, I talked to Shay already, she’s more than willing to lend you a few good students of hers that might write for you if you need them. Shay’s the teacher of the college-level class.”

Shiro nods, taking it in. “Then I guess I wouldn’t have particular issues with the place.”

“Excellent. Shall we go upstairs?”

Shiro follows Coran until the elevator and then until a small room on the fifth floor. Differently from all the dean offices Shiro’s ever been to in his life (and he’s visited plenty) this one is tidy, not overflowing with paper (on the contrary, everything is neatly stacked in folders), with a small coffee machine in the corner and a computer on the medium-sized desk. He accepts it when Coran offers him a coffee and sits down on the other side of the desk.

“So,” Coran tells him, handing the cup over, “as you’ve seen, we make do. I am afraid that the most I can offer you is a reimburse for the bus pass and of course you would be welcome to eat in the mass hall and so on, but when it comes to retribution –”

“I don’t need it,” Shiro interrupts him. “I mean, I didn’t have great expenses before the accident, I have a tenure and I’m currently on leave, I’m making enough to survive until I can go back in September. Hopefully. Really, it’d be in order to get out of the house and do something with my days, so – I’m not going to refuse the bus pass if you insist but I wouldn’t be doing this for money regardless.”

“Then I insist to pay for the bus pass, it would be the minimum. Of course, I will have to draft you a contract where you state you will be doing this for free.”

“Of course. Should I leave you my information now?”

“Please. Midterms are over in a week and lessons start again in fourteen days, the GED course stopped because we needed the rooms for midterms. You could come a few days before to sign the contract and I’d have it ready. Also, I should probably forward you the curricula so you see what have they done and at what point they are.”

“Yeah, that’d be great. How many people are we talking about and when are the times?”

“Well, the former professor had them three days per week at nine PM, two full hours. But there’s room to wiggle a bit if it’s too late for you. Sadly, before eight it’s out of the question, since most of the people in that class work and they aren’t done before seven thirty.”

“As long as there’s a bus I can catch, I don’t mind.”

“Well, the last one stops in front of here at eleven. I guess we can move them up to eight thirty so you’re covered? If you have a preference for the days –”

“What were the previous ones?”

“Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”

“It’s all right, it’s not like I have pressing engagements. Let’s keep those days so it doesn’t mess with anyone’s schedules.”

“Excellent. Then I will have everything ready by next week. If you leave me your information and your e-mail, I’ll forward you everything.”

Shiro nods and gives Coran the aforementioned data and his email, then stays a short while to finish his coffee and leaves feeling… well, not rejuvenated, but with the feeling he picked the right course of action.

--

True to his word, Coran sends him the curriculum two days later. It’s… well, fairly standard. His predecessor has covered most of the geometry required notions, math basics until probability and enough of the algebra and trigonometry notions to start on analytical geometry, but then again he probably was planning to cover most of that during the second semester. He has all of that to go along with a lot of solid geometry and statistics, but he also has an entire semester to cover it and he could explain that stuff in his sleep, he really doubts he won’t manage the rest. He’s probably going to have to teach them trigonometry from scratch, but again, things he could do in his sleep.

He has to go back to sign the contract in a week. Maybe in between now and then he could drop by the Garrison and grab some of his textbooks since he never kept those at home.

Yeah, it’s a good idea. He texts Lance to warn him that he’s dropping by tomorrow and his office better not look like no one’s at least dusted it off – Lance replies with some ridiculous gif of some guy from some TV show Lance likes giving a thumbs-up and congratulates him on leaving hibernation.

Shiro feed the birdspawn and wishes people had stuck to texting instead of using WhatsApp and its dumb attached pictures.

--

The next day, he takes a taxi to the campus – there’s no bus headed there from where he lives – and the contrast with Altea really feels stark. He goes through the garden, waving at the few colleagues he crosses, and heads for the math department. The elevator stops at the seventh floor – at least he got the office with the good view – and he turns left, heading for the right hallway.

“Fuck, it’s broken again,” someone huffs from Shiro’s right. He stops to check on the situation.

Right. The coffee machine. It’s been getting stuck since forever and it’s why Shiro always went to the fifth floor to get it – the students around it really should learn that trick. Still, it’s not his business. He’s about to go, when he hears more of that conversation.

“Good luck with that, I had someone warn the fucking janitor some fifteen minutes ago but he hasn’t shown up yet.”

“What, seriously? What do I pay for, not even getting coffee when I want it?”

The hell, Shiro thinks, and doesn’t head for the office for now.

“Oh, there he is,” a third student huffs, and –

Right. Someone’s hurrying towards the coffee machine from the other side of the hallway. The janitor in question, Shiro figures, except –

Except that the aforementioned janitor is a hell of a lot younger than the average, not past twenty-three, twenty-four if pushing it, but then again he’s not that tall, so it might play to his disadvantage. He’s very lean, though; lean and wiry, if the horrid green janitor outfit he’s wearing doesn’t lie. He also has long-ish raven hair he definitely cuts on his own, it’s obvious from the way his bangs are falling on his forehead and the back of his neck.

Ah, and he happens to be one specific janitor that Shiro might… have noticed back before the accident, in the sense that while they never exchanged a word, he’s seen the guy around the place for the last few months (he’s definitely been hired at the start of the last semester) and he’s occasionally thought that he looked fairly cute, if not for the perpetual scowl marring his face. Anyway, Lance had noticed and had been joking about Shiro’s little crush at his expenses for a while… back before the accident, because after then he didn’t mention it anymore and Shiro definitely hadn’t thought about the guy at all, if anything because he had to worry about more pressing matters. (As in, the will I ever regain enough motion in my right arm kind of pressing matters.)

Anyway, the cute janitor is definitely still on the premises, and he also looks pissed, but Shiro can’t disagree on that specific notion.

“Yeah, here I am,” the guy says. He has a nice voice, Shiro thinks, deep and smooth, except that it’d sound nicer if he wasn’t obviously annoyed at those three and doing absolutely nothing to hide it. “Let me guess, it got stuck again.”

“Well, that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” The first student remarks. The janitor looks like he wants to punch the smug ass in the face but doesn’t and sighs before opening up the thing and tinkering around. To his credit, the problem gets solved in minutes – at some point he closes the panel, presses some button meant to reboot the entire thing and the first guy’s coffee starts brewing the moment it comes back online.

The janitor sighs.

“There was a one dollar coin inside,” he says. Then he motions to a sticker just over the coin slot. “This here reads that it accepts coins up until fifty cents. Has your fancy education taught you that up until means that it doesn’t accept more than fifty, or not even that?”

“Hey,” the second student says, “I’m not paying what I’m paying to hear you whine. Never mind that, who do you even think you are? I could complain to the workforce management office, you know.”

Shiro, who had been moving closer, was looking at the janitor, not at the other asshole, and that’s how he sees the kid’s violet eyes go from annoyed to really fucking scared shitless, which makes Shiro assume that he needs that job, crappy as it is.

Well then. Never mind Shiro’s feelings when it comes to finding the guy very nice to look at, he has issues with people disrespecting anyone’s hard work, especially when it comes from the worst part of the student body who most likely hasn’t even babysat kids for extra money when they were teenagers.

(Shiro had, even if his family is well-off, and while he’s never worked a low wage job, he can imagine that it doesn’t have to be much fun in itself without people looking at you wrong for doing it in the first place.)

“Oh, Mr. Pierce, hello,” he says, as amiably as he can.

At once, those three turn to look at him – they certainly seem surprised to see him around.

“Professor! They told us you wouldn’t be back for a while, what a nice –”

“I’m not back until September at least,” Shiro says, “I’m here just to take some textbooks. However, I should like to remind you that my TA knows your names and talks to me regularly, and that when someone who’s not paying to hear people whine reminds you the correct use of English language, instead of threatening to get them fired, I’d go revise basic grammar. By the way, the coffee machine on the fifth floor is always perfectly functioning and also accepts one dollar coins. Next time take the stairs instead of distracting people from their work.”

“As if,” the kid sighs, but now that he’s seen that Shiro’s on his side, he’s not wasting the chance to land another blow. “I was cleaning the bathroom.” Shiro can hear that he’s physically restraining himself from making a remark about how much he thinks that the people around him have something in common with what he was cleaning in said bathroom. He can sympathize. He also appreciates that he wouldn’t give them the time of the day if they couldn’t actually lose him a paycheck.

Shiro glares at those three again. They do look somewhat ashamed, though they’re definitely more worried for their grades than actually contrite or like they understand what was it that they fucked up in this course of interaction. “Next time don’t assume that paying means you don’t have to put any effort in anything or that you can harass other people who have to earn a living.”

They hear the dismissal – good – and flee in the other direction.

Shiro glances at the nametag on the kid’s horrible green uniform – he can only read Keith, not the surname, but at least he has a name to attach to the face.

“Those three are assholes,” he says, “next time let them wait.”

“I would,” Keith replies, his glare softening ever so slightly, “but then you deal with the workforce management office. Anyway, thanks. I mean, it’s not the first time it happens, but it might have been the first someone stepped in.”

“Hey, no problem. I can’t stand people who think that if they’re paying then they can do whatever they want. Good luck next time.”

“Yeah, I wish.”

Keith gives him a nod and then goes back towards the bathrooms.

Shiro decides that at least the upside of the community college thing will definitely be not having to teach assholes.

When he gets into his office, he’s pleased to see that Lance has kept everything neat and clean – he finds his textbooks fairly easy and while bagging them with one hand is bothersome and takes him a longer time than he’d like, he’s done soon enough.

Too bad that according to his doctor he couldn’t actually drag that many books around.

Shit. Lance is in class at this hour and he doesn’t want to ask a colleague who’d want to make small talk. He’s this tempted to text Lance to tell him to drop the bag at his place, when –

“Er,” Keith says from outside his door, “I don’t wanna presume, but do you need help with that? I was going to the bathrooms on the other side but you left the door open.”

… Right. He did. His first instinct is refusing, he doesn’t want to waste Keith’s time, but then again he’d waste Lance’s as well if he asked him to take a detour just for his books, and it’s ten minutes in between here and the exit where he could call a taxi.

“Oh, it’s all right,” he replies. “I did leave the door open. Well, if it wouldn’t inconvenience you terribly, I’m not supposed to carry heavy weights and I need to take a taxi, and I need to bring that bag with.”

“No inconvenience,” Keith says, “it’s what, ten minutes to the exit? I hadn’t started with the other bathrooms anyway. Can – can I get in?”

“Oh, sure.” Keith does, grabbing the bag and leaving immediately as if he’s not presuming he can stay in Shiro’s office longer than the bare necessary. Shiro doesn’t remark on it and locks the door instead.

“Thanks,” he tells Keith while they’re on the elevator. “Really, if anyone complains that you fucked up the schedule or something just tell them you were helping me out.”

“Professor, I really doubt anyone notices what I am up to.” It’s said in such a matter of fact way that Shiro doesn’t even try to find a rebuttal – they stay in silence until they reach the exit and Shiro calls the taxi.

“Thank you, really,” he says, “you just saved my TA’s evening.”

“At least someone’s happy. Take care,” Keith says, and heads back for the campus.

Shiro hops on the cab after the driver puts the bag inside. He looks at his textbooks, thinks about those three assholes and decides that the world really is unfair.

--

“You know, you could have said and I’d have brought you the books in the evening,” Lance tells him days later as he takes back the last stack of midterms that they finished re-checking, good thing that Shiro’s not going to have to deal with any of that until the end of the year.

“It’s a half hour detour, I wouldn’t want to keep you more than needed. Besides, I got help.”

“Who, some student?”

“No, the janitor. The one who’s apparently always telling people to not feed one-dollar coins to the coffee machine.”

Lance thinks about it for a moment before he seems to recognize who is it that Shiro’s speaking of.

“Young? Dark hair? Bad attitude? The one you totally like?”

“Right, but I didn’t think the attitude was so bad. And come on, I thought you forgot –”

“According to gossip from everyone he’s chewed for treating that coffee machine horribly, it is, but then again if it was me in his place I’d want to murder half of my old class, so who am I to judge. And are you serious? We’ve known each other for five years and you had never flustered while talking about anyone else, do you think I’d forget? Then again hey, you certainly improved your chances of him saying yes if you ever ask him out.”

“Excuse me?”

“Hey, you went all knight in shining armor on him and made sure those assholes didn’t try to get him fired because they could, that counts for something.”

Shiro groans out loud. “Please, let’s just drop the subject. As if this is the right time for asking people on dates.”

“Whatever, man, but still, consider it. That said, are you sure you don’t want a ride back from Altea’s at least on the first week or so?”

“Lance, I’m thirty, my doctor cleared me, I think I can handle taking the bus.”

“Well, you have my number and Hunk’s if you need a ride, just don’t call after eleven PM or –”

“Lance, don’t, I wouldn’t even dare.”

As if he needs to know at what time they have fun of the X-rated nature in the evening – they might be all friends more than colleagues at this point but no way he wants to be clued in, never mind that he has his mother nagging at him for having until now failed to bring home a girlfriend, or partner or whatnot (she wants to see him settled and doesn’t care with whom, which is a fairly good thing to know when you’ve pretty much battled for both teams, but that’s neither here nor there, never mind that Shiro never was that big on dating in the first place), he doesn’t need his friends to add to it, too.

Before going to bed, he puts in order the notes he printed for tomorrow’s class – bless technology allowing you to dictate rather than type – and if he goes to sleep feeling somewhat excited he can’t be blamed for it. Fine, most of his colleagues probably wouldn’t get what’s so exciting about teaching high school level algebra, but the more he thinks about this the more he decides that a few months of completely changing air when it comes to his job might really be a blessing rather than not.

(Considering that he’s also not attending most faculty meetings, he’s really seen the positive angle in this godforsaken situation.

He’s also absolutely not wondering if his mom would like the cute janitor whose name happens to be Keith or if she’d be amused by the situation as much as Lance is.)

--

It’s probably paranoid that he takes the bus two hours before he has to be in the classroom, but after spending the morning re-checking his photocopies, trying to ignore Slav chattering parrot nonsense and reassuring his mother that yes, he’s doing fine, yes, his doctor okay-ed the whole shebang and no, the inactivity and his lack of a significant other are not driving him insane yet, he needs to be out.

(He loves his mother, he does, but since the accident she’s fallen prey to her worse instincts and if Shiro hears anything more on the topic of if someone else was living with you I’d feel a lot less worried he’s going to lose his mind.)

So, he takes the bus, arrives with time to spare, goes to the little office his predecessor had and which Coran agreed to lend him for the time being and calls Allura to inform her that he’s starting today and to thank her again for the opportunity.

“Don’t have too much fun,” she jokes before closing the call.

Yeah, as if – he just hopes he hasn’t forgotten how to explain the easy stuff. Given that he’s been explaining the hard stuff for the last five years or so… well, he’s planned everything down to the last note, Coran’s left him all the stuff he said he’d needed on the desk so he has to do minimal work and from next week he even has the student writing for him. For this one he figures he’ll just run a few tests to see what level everyone is.

He sits at the desk some fifteen minutes before he’s supposed to start and checks the list. Thirty people – definitely doable. Two thirds men and one third women – nice, in his last class most of the pupils were men. There’s no other info but then again he doesn’t even need it and the list is to record who’s present and who isn’t, so he just signs the bottom of it already and leaves it on the desk. Some ten minutes before he’s set to start, people start coming in – he asks their name so he can try to start remembering them and marks them as attending, good thing that he can get as far as checking names intelligibly with his left hand and he doesn’t have to actually write them down.

(Shit, he really hopes he can regain enough motion in his right arm to at least write.)

No one seems too puzzled to have him stand-in, so he supposes they were warned somehow. At eight thirty sharp, he only has three unchecked names on his list.

“Right,” he says, “there’s only three people missing. Caldwell, Jane, Lang, Richard and…” He squints, for some reason that name is printed smaller than the others. “Kogane, Keith?”

He’s just read it when the classroom’s door slams open. “Sorry, the bus missed a ride and I had to run –”

Shiro looks at the newcomer, thinking isn’t the voice familiar, and –

Well, if it isn’t that same Keith from the Garrison, looking at him as if he wasn’t absolutely expecting Shiro of all people to be here, not that he’d have any reasons to.

And now he’s standing on the doorstep as if he has no idea whether he’s allowed in or not. Shiro honestly hopes that he hasn’t betrayed his surprise openly.

“Why,” Shiro says, “get in. I hadn’t marked you as not attending yet, and I believe in leaving people at least some leeway. Especially if they’re coming from work. Sit down, you look like you’re about to faint. Or if you want to get some water you can come back later.”

“No, it’s all right. Thank you. Sir.”

Shiro’s going to have to tell him that he’s not that formal a person later, but for now he just lets him take his seat, he looks about to topple over. If he ran from the Garrison… well, okay, makes sense he’d look like he was about to faint.

He marks Keith Kogane as attending and then introduces himself, explaining that he’s just the replacement for the semester and that he’d like to take a couple lessons to get the feeling of the class, understand at which point they’re at and maybe run a test to see exactly what is that he should revise before moving on with the rest of the curriculum until next week the student who’s supposed to write in his place will join them. Everyone looks happy enough with it – he hears someone muttering good, a chance to revise – and so he grabs the sheet where he had noted everything that should have been covered already.

“So, I’ve been given a list of what you studied already but since I’d like to hear it from you, anyone can tell me the last subject you covered before Christmas?”

Someone in the first row grabs their notes and runs through them. “Er, last I recall, linear functions?”

Which in theory does add up with what Shiro knows. Everyone else nods along, but then –

“That’s because most of you weren’t at the last lesson before vacations,” Keith says, and then – “Shit, I should have asked –”

“Next time raising your hand might not be a bad idea, but I’m not going to take it personally. What was it about the last lesson before vacations?”

“Er,” Keith says, “it was just before Christmas, for scheduling issues, so of course most people weren’t here, it was just me and those other two who aren’t attending now. Sir. Anyway, uh, the previous professor, he sort of introduced solving a quadrating equation with a graph, so technically that was the last thing we covered. But he said he’d go over it again next semester, so. Sorry, I shouldn’t –”

“You shouldn’t have told me just because I’d have had to explain it anyway? Calm down, expressing opinions is welcomed. Well then, I guess that’s what I should do next, but for today I’d rather have you all answer a few questions so I know if there’s something else I have to revise before moving on to that.”

By the time class is over, he’s realized that he definitely needs to revise the last couple of solid geometry units that were on his list and that he probably could do with refreshing everyone’s mind about linear functions as well, but other than that they all seem fairly on top of it.

What he notices, though, is that Keith has the face of someone who is actively trying to not raise their hand at all times. He answers some three or four questions, promptly and without getting it wrong, though, but Shiro just can’t shake the feeling that if it was for him he’d have answered everything, included the questions everyone else seemed less sure of.

At the end of his survey he has enough time to go over the linear functions, even if he plans to do it again next Wednesday just to be overtly sure, and by the time ten thirty arrives no one leaves the room looking like they’re not happy with the switch. Good. That said –

“Er, Mr. Kogane, would you mind staying a minute?”

Shiro doesn’t miss that Keith flinches at that, but still, he doesn’t leave the room and heads back to his desk.

“Sure,” he says. “Uh, I’m sorry for before, if it was what this is about, next time –”

“You ran all the way from the Garrison?”

Keith shrugs. “Well, my shift ends at eight PM. The bus passes at… eight-five or so. Last semester it was no problem if it missed one ride or if I didn’t catch it, because one hour was more than enough to get here, but now I’m kind of really cutting it close. So – yeah. The previous professor wasn’t really big on people arriving late, no disrespect meant –”

Exactly what Shiro suspected, damn it. “Hey, calm down, I’m not angry or anything. I knew that everyone here is coming in the evening because they have a job, I don’t mind giving people some leeway if they need it. I mean, I tend not to at the Garrison because most people sleep on campus so they have no excuses for being late, but I’m not that kind of asshole. Does your shift there always end at eight PM?”

“Yeah. I tried to ask them to switch it a bit, like, I’d come half an hour earlier to be out at seven thirty, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“Fine, then you’re excused if you’re fifteen minutes late or something, I don’t need you to faint the moment you arrive. And that was the first thing. The second… am I wrong or you’re trying really hard to not look like an overachiever?”

Keith downright flushes at that, and looks down at his hands rather than him. “Er, it’s just, I like math.”

I kind of got as far as that, Shiro doesn’t say. “Well, that’s something math teachers like to hear. So?”

“So, uh, let’s just say I never was – never mind. I used to reply whenever I knew an answer this past semester. It’s kind of the only class where I can do it. But – uh – the previous teacher, at some point he asked me to stay a moment after and… shit, I don’t know how to say it –”

“Just tell it how it is, formality is not my strong suit.”

“The gist of it was that if I replied to everything other people might have felt bad and I was coming off as an overachiever.”

Shiro wants to groan out loud. If there’s one thing he despises, it’s this school of thought that people who are good at something can’t show it off because other people feel bad. It’s a school setting, of course people should make teachers aware if they know things.

Never mind.

“Right. I imagine you’re dead tired, so I have just two things to tell you. First, is that Sir makes me feel like some kind of grandfather, Professor is fine. Really. The second is that if you don’t feel comfortable showing off it’s your decision, but I don’t mind it if people who know things make sure that I know they do. I mean, you know how I noticed my current TA in class?”

“Er, no?”

“Because he would always raise his damned hand even when everyone else was groaning, and then he told me that he spent years without realizing he was that good at math and when he found out he figured he would at least try to impress people with it. I know it’s a GED class, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Got it?”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks, S – Professor?”

“Good. See you on Wednesday then. Don’t kill yourself running over here, you have a fifteen-minute tolerance.”

“Oh. All right. Thank you. Have a great evening.”

At that point, Keith pretty much bolts the moment Shiro wishes him a good night, too, but Shiro hadn’t missed that at the fifteen-minute tolerance comment he had looked relieved. And he had smiled ever so slightly at Shiro telling him to raise his damned hand if he wants to speak up.

As he locks up the room and heads for the bus stop – he only has ten minutes before the one going in his direction arrives – he decides to tell Lance to be extra hard on those three assholes from the coffee machine. No one should look that pleased someone told them to not put themselves down on purpose, and – it’s not that it’s the first time Shiro runs into this kind of instance, because it’s overtly common if your business is teaching anything, but something is feeling more wrong than usual with this particular instance.

He just wishes he knew why, but never mind. He has the entire semester to figure that out, at least. And he’s not going to think about the fact that he had distinctly thought that Keith’s face almost lighted up when he lost that scowl, and it wasn’t even a full-on smile, because that’s so not where his mind should go. Never mind that it’s every possible level of unprofessional now that the man is actually his student until he takes the GED test or until Shiro’s done with this semester, but this would really be the wrong time for that kind of thinking even if it wasn’t.

He’ll figure it out, professionally, and he’ll do his job, as in making sure that his class at least passes the math section of the GED test, and that’ll be it.

Sounds like a plan, he thinks, and doesn’t listen to the small part of himself whispering that following through with it might prove more complicated than he’d like.

Chapter Text

Two weeks later, just before his first test, he has to maybe re-evaluate that notion.

It’s not that anything has gone wrong. All the contrary. First thing of all, he found out that his class follows him without too many issues – he has to go over a few topics more than once, sure, but no one sleeps while he’s talking, everyone seems intent on at least learning the bare minimum to pass the test and the only problem he has is that the actual-college-level-student Shay sent to him (Zethrid something, Shiro has a feeling he’s never going to remember the surname if only because he really doesn’t like her and it just won’t stick) is… well, she looks like someone who’d rather be anywhere else than in a GED class and does nothing to hide it. Then again, it’s not like Shiro can complain and ask for someone else when they obviously sent her because she’s ahead of her class, so he supposes he’ll have to deal with it. He’s gone through enough of the curricula that he thinks he can start handing out surprise tests if only to check how things are going, and actually having a schedule, something to work on and something to look forward to when he wakes up in the morning did make wonders for his current mood.

Hell, he doesn’t even feel like shipping Slav back to his mother two days out of seven, and given that it used to be seven out of seven, it’s probably a good thing.

But he might have paid extra attention to what Keith did in class, and he hasn’t forgotten the tone he used when he said, I like math. It sounded like some kind of understatement, but Shiro hasn’t quite figured how much because regardless of their conversation, Keith has stuck with his not-trying-to-be-an-overachiever attitude and Shiro can see that at times he’s doing fairly imaginative things with the pen in his hand just so that he keeps himself occupied rather than answering (properly, most likely). The few questions he asked were all pertinent at the very least, and it’s obvious that he’s not asking most of them because he hasn’t understood but rather because he’d like to know more on the subject.

Still, it’s not like Shiro can do anything more than he has until now, namely rehashing their only conversation. Still, it’s… bothersome on a level he can’t quite quantify or pinpoint, and it’s driving him insane, not counting that he still has to chastise himself every time he thinks anything in the realm of well, he’s still attractive.

He’s so not going there. At all. Ever.

Okay, he’s this tempted to ask Keith to stay over and discuss it for a moment, but he always bolts the moment class is done (most times he’s still wearing at least the pants of the uniform, which makes Shiro feel like calling the workforce management office and ask to please give the guy a damn change of shift, but he has a feeling it wouldn’t be welcome, and so he never does), and it just – it never feels right.

Never mind that it’s most probably not his business.

Then again, it’s the only sort of negative thing about the situation, and maybe it’s better to think of that than of all the research he’s neglecting because he’s not cleared for any kind of stressful job at least until next month, whatever his doctor’s opinions on the chances of recuperation when it comes to his arm will be at the next check-up.

“Is there a reason why you’re that sour? I thought the point was making you feel better,” Lance tells him the day before the first surprise test he’s going to dump on his poor students.

Shiro doesn’t groan just because Lance had dropped what smells like excellent cherry pie in his kitchen and he’s more grateful for that than annoyed at the remark, which is… actually not untrue, anyway.

“Nothing really. It’s just – uh, I was wondering –”

“How’s your crush faring?”

Shiro, in a moment that really was not dignified, spits the water he had been drinking.

“My what?”

“Shiro, please. If you wanted to know how things are on the workplace for the cute guy who has golden hands when it comes to repairing the coffee machine, they go as well as they do for anyone with that kinda job who is not over the age of forty and who doesn’t subsequently get ignored by his peers. And the three assholes you nailed the other day keep on sleeping in class, but it’s their problem.”

Fair, Shiro figures. It’s their dime after all.

“You can tell them that no one’s fallen asleep yet at the place I’m in right now.”

“Sweet, wanna switch?”

“Like hell. Let’s just have the pie, shall we?”

The pie is, indeed, excellent. Shiro tells Lance to bring Hunk over next time or something, he wants to at least thank him in person, and after his TA leaves he goes to check the tests – basic analytical geometry mostly about straight lines, shouldn’t be too complicated – which he will hand out to his class tomorrow.

Something still doesn’t feel quite right.

--

The next day, he dismisses Zethrid as soon as he’s done handing the sheets – he can manage until it’s done and then he’ll just take a taxi to avoid putting extra weight on his arm – and for the first time in this life no one groans at the prospect of a surprise test except maybe two people.

Good. He sits back in his chair after explaining how it’s going to go – they have one hour to solve some five analytical geometry questions that should be pretty much at their level along with a couple double variable equations just for the sake of fitting the entire thing on a page, he doubts it’s going to be the cause of existential pains for anyone in the class.

He does notice Keith scribbling quickly in the sheet they have for writing down drafts the moment he finishes reading the test, but he did say he liked math, right? Nothing surprising there.

He spends the next fifteen minutes glancing around, checking his phone once in a while and wishing next week already was here so he can be done already with his medical check-up –

And then he glances at Keith’s desk again, where its occupant is obviously… faking it.

Or better, he’s turning the paper upside down, glancing around nervously and pretending to write something on the drafts sheet, but he has the face of someone who has finished and doesn’t want to turn it in too early and also doesn’t know if he should shield his test from prying eyes or lay back and go over it again.

He also looks like he’s completely fucking exhausted – he has bags under his eyes darker than usual, and today he even has both parts of the uniform. He also didn’t arrive ten minutes later as he normally does.

Shiro glances around the class – everyone else is concentrated on their work and no one seems to care about their surroundings.

He stands up and moves towards Keith’s small desk.

“Are you finished?” He asks, keeping his voice low so the others aren’t disturbed.

Keith looks up at him with the face of a deer caught in headlights before glancing down at his sheet, then up at him again. Then he shrugs.

“Er, yes? I mean, I probably got it wrong, but –”

“Why?”

Keith shrugs. “The last time I was done this much earlier I got told I must have had something wrong, no one is done that fast, but I looked at it thrice and – I can’t see straight anymore.”

Right. He’s dead on his feet, now that Shiro can look at him up more closely.

On one side… well, it’s weird he was indeed done this early. On the other, he said he was good at the subject, so –

“It’s fine, hand it in.”

“What?”

“Hand it in.”

“What if it’s all wrong?”

Shiro’s voice drops so low no one could hear him – he hopes.

“We can discuss it before or after the next lesson. Come on, go home. You look exhausted, if you didn’t get anything wrong you probably would just triple checking this and convincing yourself you must have made some mistake.”

Keith doesn’t seem too convinced, but he nods and hands over the test before grabbing his backpack and leaving. Shiro isn’t surprised to notice that no one can care less about whether he left early or not.

Well, fine. He puts the test away – he’s tempted to look at it now, but if anyone tries to copy their answers off Wikipedia he needs to stay alert. He’ll look at it tomorrow morning.

--

The next morning, Shiro wakes up, feeds the parrot, gets his coffee ready and sits at his desk to look over the tests. Keith’s is the first of the pile, of course, and so he takes it with his left hand after putting the mug on the empty side of the desk.

Then he looks at it, not exactly knowing what to expect.

And then his left arm jerks on the side as he turns the paper over and his mug goes crashing on the ground because he hits it with his elbow, and that’s most probably going to ruin the carpet, but that’s not why Shiro almost shouts fuck in the middle of his empty room (which of course means that Slav starts repeating it, not that the impromptu soundtrack isn’t fitting right now).

Fuck the carpet.

So, it’s not about the equations, which are all written down perfectly and neatly, and when Shiro checks the draft he can see that nothing changed in between that and the final test, which means that Keith solved and copied down all of them in less than ten minutes.

It’s about the damned demonstration. The question was to find the equation of a straight line that is orthogonal to another given one and which passes through a point, which is easy enough and which people usually solve through regular calculations.

He grabs one of the other tests at random – it’s solved exactly the way he had imagined someone with the set of skills he knows his class has would.

Except that Keith’s is… geometric reasoning, not the usual system, and – there’s no way someone taught him that in this class, because there’s nothing in the curricula even mentioning it, never mind that it’s… well, harder than usual, if you don’t lean towards it naturally. So, either he’s studying on his own, which could very well have happened, and even if he studied on his own, it still means he’s good at this… or he got there on his own without help, which would make it a crime in the eyes of academia and everything it stands for that the man is studying to get a GED and not in a class on a full ride scholarship right now.

Never mind cleaning bathrooms at the Garrison.

Shiro checks the data, figuring that maybe the result is wrong so Keith might have bitten off more than he could chew, but –

No.

The result is actually correct. Same as the other equations. Same as everything on the test.

Which would be all relatively fine and dandy if Keith had finished it in the allotted time – or better, it would make him very good at this subject.

But no. He finished the entire thing including copying the draft in… ten minutes? Fifteen? And he was this close to nodding off the entire time.

Fuckfuckfuck, Slav croaks, and that’s when Shiro realizes that he just barely dodged a second-degree burn when he threw his coffee on the carpet, that his parrot is muttering what he has been muttering for the last five minutes and that he needs to show this to someone else or he’ll jump to conclusions and he doesn’t want to do that yet.

Ah, and of course he can’t actually clean the damned carpet. Good thing that the cleaning lady was supposed to come in today anyway – he decides to wait for her and then get on with this, because he needs another set of eyes. At least. He considers dropping by the Garrison, but Lance has classes this morning and he mentioned spending the afternoon in the library researching for the paper he put on hold to take Shiro’s classes and he honestly doesn’t want to show the test to any of his colleagues. Especially because he knows most of them would automatically assume it was copied off Wikipedia and Shiro just hadn’t noticed. He could ask Allura, but right now she’s swamped with bureaucracy stuff since they’re electing the next Dean in a short while. He wonders if Coran – no, Coran has a history degree, now he recalls, so he probably wouldn’t be of much help.

Well then, it’s a Tuesday morning. He knows for sure it’s not the busiest day at Hunk’s bakery, he hasn’t been there in ages, he thinks he could do with some sugar right now and everyone in the department agreed that Hunk was above average in his field, so he probably could spot whether the test is legitimate or not. Shiro thinks it is, and he also was above average back in the day, but – while he did get to figuring out geometric reasoning on his own, he never was that fast, and it was towards the end of high school, which… well, which Keith hasn’t attended or at least hasn’t finished, since he’s studying for a damned GED.

He gets dressed, profusely apologizes to the cleaning lady for the mess and leaves her a bonus so that she can bring the carpet to the dry cleaning, and then calls for a taxi with the test in his bag. He rattles off Hunk’s address and lays back on the seat.

Shit.

If this is legit –

He’s not considering all the implications yet.

--

When he walks into the bakery, he’s relieved to see that it’s empty – good. Hunk beams at him from behind the counter and comes over to him after washing his hands quickly, and good thing he obviously remembers at the last moment that right now hugs are not a very good idea and settles for giving Shiro a pat on the back.

“I hadn’t seen you in months, man, but you’re looking pretty good. Well. Not counting that, but –”

“Yeah, I have a check-up in a short while. Let’s hope it’s good news. Listen, I’m here also to ask you a, uh, professional opinion?”

“On what, cupcakes?”

“No, no, I mean… professional. Lance told you I’m teaching a GED class right now, yes?”

“Yeah, he mentioned it. But I doubt you need my help with high school-level math.”

“No, but – one of the students. Let’s say I had them do a surprise test yesterday. And I need someone to make sure I’m not hallucinating things.”

“That bad or that good?”

“That good. Of course, I could also do with some cherry pie, or –”

“Good for you, I just put one out of the oven. Wait a moment and sit wherever you want, I’ll lock up for a bit and come over. There’s no one coming in at this hour anyway, it’s the dead moment where everyone is having class.”

Shiro nods and does – Hunk is back a few minutes later with a slice of fresh cherry pie and a coffee on the house, good because of course he hasn’t had time to make himself some more.

“So, what’s the big deal?”

Shiro takes Keith’s test from the folder he had put it in and hands it over.

“The big deal is… this is the test I gave them. They haven’t gone farther than basic trigonometry, and I gave them one hour to do it. Except that this person here, he was done in fifteen minutes tops, including copying from the draft, and he was coming in from work and I had to send him away because he looked about to fall asleep on it. And he was obviously faking double checking it. I mean, he was pretending he was considering changes here and there but I stopped him before he actually made any. I’m fairly positive he hasn’t cheated or checked Wikipedia or whatever have you. Now… please look at it and give me an honest opinion.”

“Right. Let me see – woah.”

And that was the first couple equations, Shiro thinks as he starts eating the pie.

He sees Hunk’s eyes becoming progressively wider as he reads on, and by the time he’s checked over the rough draft he lets out a seriously impressed whistle.

“Shiro, you said he did all of this without cheating? In fifteen minutes?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure that he can’t have learned geometric reasoning somewhere?”

“Well, not in that class, but if someone is studying to get a GED I doubt they even finished high school, and sure as hell you don’t get as far as that in early grades.”

“Right.” Hunk looks at it again, then places it back in the folder. “Well, there’s two chances. Either he somehow cheated and you missed it, or it’s a crime against everything that’s sacred and a proof of our fallible school system that this guy isn’t solving equations full-time. And I’m saying it as someone who’s been told that it’s a crime that I bake cakes for a living, but – I mean, I hated the field, I didn’t hate the subject, and I enjoyed what I did – it just wasn’t for me for a living. I have a feeling this guy would give an arm to actually do this shit for a living – ah, damn.”

“Hunk, I do have a sense of humor, do go ahead,” Shiro snorts. It actually was hilarious and if only everyone else joked about it, he’d like this situation a lot more.

“Yeah, well, if he got this far on his own he sure as hell doesn’t belong in a GED class.”

“Good to know someone else thinks the same,” Shiro says.

“It’s obvious,” Hunk says, shrugging. “And you said he wasn’t firing on all cylinders?”

“Definitely not,” Shiro agrees.

“Well, fuck,” Hunk replies, “because I can’t imagine what he’d have come up with if he had.”

Shiro thinks about it and resolves to stuff some more pie in his mouth before he goes on a rant about how crappy the school system is, and then starts to think.

“I was wondering,” Shiro says after swallowing, “maybe I should take him aside and test him a bit? Just to see how he fares in other things? I don’t know, maybe ask him to solve something more complicated. Because if he’s that good it’s a crime that he’s not somewhere he can make use of those skills.”

“Yeah, I’d do that just in case. But I have a feeling you just ran into some guy you don’t want to… well, I don’t know, but sure as hell he should be given a chance to… wait, what job does he have?”

Shiro feels like laughing out of desperation. “He currently cleans bathrooms and fixes our floor’s coffee machine at the Garrison.”

“… You’re shitting me, aren’t you?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Wow. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it’s… really… a waste of talent?”

“Let’s see if he agrees when I see him tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and you should let me know and finish that pie already, maybe you’ll stop looking as if you’re sulking this much.”

“You’re hilarious, but thanks.” He sighs, taking another forkful of pie, and then –

“Wait a second,” Hunk says, “Lance told me you had a hilarious crush on this dude from the cleaning staff –”

“… Can’t Lance keep his mouth shut,” Shiro groans.

“And this is the infamous person?”

“… What if he is? And I don’t have a hilarious crush. He’s good-looking. Can’t one guy notice that in another guy?”

“Sure he can, but – wow, man, this is awkward, I guess.”

“… I’m almost relieved you went there,” Shiro sighs in relief as he eats another forkful.

“Why?”

“Because your boyfriend doesn’t seem to grasp that awkwardness might be a key factor in this situation.”

“Well, knowing you, I really doubt you’re going to put a move or something at least until he’s in your class, so… dude. Awkward. You want some of that pie to go?”

“Please.”

Hunk stands up and goes behind the counter where he packs another couple of slices, then leaves the bag on his table. “On the house, don’t even think of paying for it. And really, if your guy’s doing GED classes, obviously no one noticed that he’s pretty fucking good with numbers, but – as hypocritical as it sounds coming from me, try to make him get it.”

“If your hypocrisy means I get free quality dessert for the foreseeable future I think I won’t be the one telling you to go back to academia, believe me.”

“Please, one of us in the house is enough. Will you let me know?”

“Sure. And thanks, I needed an outsider opinion.”

“Anytime, man, anytime.”

Well, if anything I can grade these papers knowing there’s a nice reward waiting in the fridge, Shiro thinks as he climbs on the taxi he called before heading out of the bakery.

It’s exactly what he does later that evening. Before going to get his pie, he writes an a+ on Keith’s paper, feeling like the grade does not reflect at all the content, and tries not to think about how Keith went through at least part of high school and no one noticed that he could have easily gotten a free ride to the MIT, if his suspicions are confirmed.

--

He says nothing as he hands down the corrected the next day other than the obligatory compliments since the lowest grade was a B-.

He does notice that Keith looks… inordinately pleased as he reads his grade.

What the hell, it can’t be the first time he gets an A+ in math, right?

Shiro decides to not even go there and settles on spending the next hour on revising everything that the rest of the class got wrong in the test so that they can move on next time, wishing that Zethrid could pretend to be somewhat less bored as she writes things down on the blackboard. Meanwhile, Keith is definitely looking bored out of his mind, not that Shiro had any doubts about it.

Well then. Class goes smooth as usual, Zethrid leaves as soon as they’re done (as usual), and Keith seems ready to bolt as usual.

Right.

“Mr. Kogane, would you mind staying behind a few minutes?” He asks as soon as everyone else is gone and Keith’s stuffing notebooks in his backpack.

The color literally drains from Keith’s face.

“Uh, I wouldn’t, but – the bus –”

“It’s nothing bad,” Shiro says, “and – well, I’m fairly sure that if I’m right about what I have to ask you, I’ll be glad to call a cab for you and pay for it.”

“What the hell?” Now he’s definitely on the defensive. Damn.

“Okay, that came out wrong. Listen, I saw your face earlier when I gave you back that test. Was it the first time you got that grade?”

Keith flinches. What the hell? “Er, yes?”

“What the hell?”

“… Why, what the hell?”

Shiro feels like he’s just dropped into a comedy of errors.

“Please, sit a moment and I will explain you what the hell is this about.”

Keith does, grabbing a chair and going next to Shiro’s desk. “I’m listening,” he says.

“Okay. Can I please know how your other tests were graded, at least this year?”

“Uhm, well, this year, the other teacher wasn’t really into tests, so we actually never had one. I didn’t get any grades. When I still was in school, er, well, not as much? That was why I wasn’t too sure yesterday.”

“Not as much?”

“Before I dropped out… I’d get them back with a B-something because – well, I always solved things the way it seemed easier to me, and like, I had some three different teachers through the years and neither of them understood the reasoning. I think they thought I cheated but since they couldn’t prove it otherwise… and well, I always had to fake being done later than I actually was. The one time I gave it back when I actually finished, they invalidated it because they said it was impossible and I must have cheated somehow. So. That’s the point. Can I know why is it important?”

Shiro wants to scream.

Instead, he takes in a deep breath.

“Because, Mr. Kogane, while this is a fairly easy subject matter, everyone else needed a full hour to get there, and you didn’t, while you were this close to nodding off. And on top of that… your way of solving things is called geometric reasoning and it’s usually taught either very late in high school if you have a very good class or directly in university if you don’t.”

“I swear, I didn’t cheat –”

“I know you didn’t. Now, point is, it’s not unheard of that people get there on their own. I did. In my last year of high school, and it still would have taken me some half hour to finish that test. I was considered the best of my class, I went on a full ride to the Garrison and I was the youngest tenured professor they ever had.”

“I – I don’t think I understand what you’re aiming at.”

“How old were you when you figured that out?”

“Uh, fifteen? Sixteen? I dropped out the next year, anyway.”

Fuck’s sake.

“And, uh, did you read up on the subject on your own?”

“Not really. I mean, I’d have liked to, but – it wasn’t feasible. Okay, fine, I did read the entire textbook on my own and I already finished the one they gave us here, but that’s about it. Can I just know why already?”

Shiro takes in a deep breath. “Because if you can do that, then you’re way ahead than I was back in the day, and I felt like a fraud giving you that mark because that test is not an A+, it’s more than that.”

For a moment, neither of them speaks. Then Keith clears his throat.

“You’re shitting me. Fuck, sorry, I mean, I shouldn’t –”

“Please do swear. It’s justified. And no, I’m not shitting you.”

“It’s – I’m sure it’s nothing that huge.”

“I’d rather be sure of that, because if I’m right – never mind. Okay, will you indulge me a moment?”

“… Okay. Sure. Whatever.”

“Can you tell me the sum of the whole numbers from one to a hundred?”

“What?”

“Just think about it for a moment.”

“Are we doing this for real?”

“I’m absolutely serious.”

Shiro doesn’t know what showed in his face that convinced Keith he’s actually not leading him on, but then Keith shrugs and mutters something along the lines of whatever, fine. He seems to consider it for a whole full minute, then –

“Five-thousand fifty. I think? I mean, if you split the amount in two and go backwards it always 101, and there’s fifty numbers on either side, so it should be 101 multiplied per fifty, shouldn’t it?”

“It should, since it’s right.”

“Well, anyone could have guessed that.”

“I really don’t think so. Anyone ever explained you what a matrix is?”

“Not really, but –”

“Okay, wait a second.”

He grabs a piece of paper and scribbles down the two easiest matrixes he can think of, summing them, and then turns it towards Keith. He figures that it’d really be too much to ask to just figure that out on his own, so he goes quickly over the concept of what the hell is a matrix and what goes on one side and what goes on the other, and tries to make it as quick and clear as he can.

“Given what I just told you, do you think you can solve this?”

Keith thinks about it for a moment, then grabs Shiro’s pen and starts scribbling.

A minute later, he doesn’t look too convinced as he hands Shiro back the exactly right reasoning. “I figured it had to go like that, but –”

“It’s correct.”

“I don’t know if – what?”

“It’s correct. And I just explained you what these are.”

“I’m sure it’s a fluke –”

“And I have a feeling you’re way ahead of this class. Listen, if – I just want to make sure. Are you dead on your feet or you’d be up for hearing more about this?”

“I’m definitely not asleep now,” Keith shrugs.

Shiro goes on the fastest, most concise explanation he can come up with about how and when exactly you use matrixes, and Keith doesn’t stop him for extra clarification any of the times. Then he turns the piece of paper around and explains him, very summarily, how you use the matrixes to calculate geometric rotations. Then he tries to think of the most straightforward problem he can come up with.

“So, you have this straight line here. If I want it to rotate around the x axis for… a random amount of a corner, let’s call it θ. It’s a two-dimensional straight line. How would you go about it?”

He hands over the piece of paper. Keith stares at it, obviously thinking it through. It takes him a minute or two, but then –

“Using the matrix?” He takes the pen, then scribbles down something and– well, shit, that’s not basic trigonometry only. He solves it neatly, multiplying the rotation matrix for the vector, and when he turns it over the solution is actually correct.

Shiro doesn’t know if he’s pushing it or not, but – fuck it.

“What if I asked you how would you go about it if the rotation was around the y axis?”

Keith thinks about it again, maybe another couple of minutes more, and –

Writes down a correct matrix that would, indeed, give the solution for that specific question.

Well, fuck.

“Honestly,” Shiro asks him after staring at the piece of paper, “you never did any of this in school or on your own?”

“I wish I had. And no, nothing past the textbook,” Keith shrugs. “So, what’s the entire point?”

Shiro can hear that he’s not quite getting it, and feels like asking the name of Keith’s former high school just so he can go and ask his teachers what the hell they were thinking when they thought he was cheating.

“The entire point is that if I get a student who in half hour more or less can put into practice concepts that I teach at the end of the first year of university math, I think he’s completely wasted in a GED class.”

The thing is, anyone would expect the person at the end of the conversation to look… happy to hear it, but Keith’s just staring back at him with a face that says so what and the only thing betraying that he’s actually feeling something about this at all is that he flinched ever so slightly.

“And what are you planning to do about it? If you are planning to do anything about it at all?”

Shiro has a feeling that Keith has a problem or a hundred with authority figures of any shape or form, even if it didn’t seem like that at the coffee machine.

“I haven’t figured that out yet because that’d imply having your opinion about it,” Shiro replies, “but for one, I was thinking to ditch the other class’s student and having you write on the blackboard in my place, if that’s fine with you.”

“What?”

“Come on, she obviously doesn’t want to be here and you’re so ahead of everyone else you’re obviously getting bored. You might as well help me out since you’d get what I was meaning to do.”

That’d be the least, honestly, and then Keith looks at him as if he’s grown two heads.

“Are you serious?”

“Why not? You have the skills, you’re getting bored out of your mind, I might as well make use of it.”

“Wouldn’t the others –”

“Think you’re showing off? I doubt they care. No one here is fifteen, and good thing that. That said, it’s obvious you’re ahead. People don’t have to know how much.”

“Can – can I think about it?”

Well, that’s better than he was figuring, given how the conversation has gone until now.

“Sure. I’m always here half an hour before lessons starts for whenever you want to let me know.”

“You really care that much?”

“I care for making sure someone’s skills are valued. And I know you won’t like it, but I kept you here for a long time and we both missed the last bus, so –”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll pay, I can spare the money once in a while.”

Shiro can hear the lie when he hears it, but he has an idea offering some more would be a very bad idea. “Fine. Then I’ll see you on Friday.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Uh, thanks. And – goodnight.”

Keith bolts after that, almost slamming the door behind his back.

Shiro takes a look at the empty classroom and sighs deeply before locking the room and grabbing his cellphone to call his own cab. Of course, Keith’s already gone by the time he arrives at the gate.

Shiro calls the cab and wishes he knew why he feels like that conversation was a half-failure.

--

“Uh, did anything happen with your favorite janitorial staff member?”

“The hell?”

It’s two PM and Lance hasn’t even said hi when Shiro picked up the phone, and he was admittedly catching up on some sleep, so the call woke him up and he’s not exactly connecting all dots.

“Earth to Shiro, you heard me.”

“I – what – why are you asking?”

“Because today I was leaving the classroom and he came up to me looking like he was gritting teeth, he asked me if I happened to be your TA, I said yes, he asked if I would be talking to you before tomorrow and I said yes, and he said to please tell you that he can’t come in early tomorrow but if you haven’t changed his mind he’s accepting, I said yes but before I could ask why he muttered some thanks and got the hell out of Dodge. So, what it is that he accepted? Because if you asked him out –”

“Lance, I do not ask students out, and – no, it’s just, he’s ahead than the others so I asked him if he wanted to write on the blackboard instead of that stuck-up princess from the college-level class and he had to get back at me.”

“Just that? Seemed kind of a bigger deal, but whatever, good for him. That said, now I get why your mom never managed to set you up with anyone.”

“Lance –”

“I mean, if you like them dark, sour and harsh of course it wouldn’t work out with all the nice girls she –”

“Lance, you really want to drop the subject.”

“Fine, fine, no one’s judging you. By the way, he looked more tired than usual.”

Well, at least he accepted. Shiro’s not even thinking about how he’s going to have to tread lightly here but honestly, it’s not even that he has a crush (which okay, fine, it’s kind of true), it’s that even being his help is a waste in the eyes of whatever divinity exists if any even does for someone who is that good at this damned subject.

Never mind that if he looked more tired than usual –

Shiro has a feeling that he walked home. He just hopes he’s wrong, but – he’s going to see this through tomorrow.

“Shit,” he sighs after closing the call.

The parrot starts repeating it and Shiro hopes there’s a reality existing somewhere where he’s not saddled with that damned bird.

--

At least, he’s glad to dismiss Zethrid from her duties the next day – she doesn’t seem to be particularly sad about it even if she does seem surprised that his replacement actually comes from the GED class.

Then Keith runs into the classroom some ten minutes before it starts. He’s not even out of the Garrison uniform, for that matter.

And he does look way more tired than he did on Wednesday.

Shiro really wants to ask if he walked home yesterday, but he doesn’t even try to do it.

“Lance informed me,” he says, because it’s obvious that if he doesn’t break the ice he doubts Keith will.

“Oh. Good. Uh, I thought about it. I guess that if you’re really sure, why the hell not.”

“I’m really sure. And good, because I just fired the other student.”

“Before even talking to me?”

“If you went through the trouble of telling someone else then I had to assume you were sure. That said, it’s not a life sentence.”

“What?”

“You look like you’re about to swallow a lemon or so. If it makes you uncomfortable –”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s just – never mind. Thanks. I guess. So, I should just write down whatever you say? What if I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“If you could be bored this previous month, I think there’s absolutely no danger. That said, if you want to, I can tell you what I’m doing next beforehand so you can revise it at home or something.”

“That – that’d be nice, but I’m afraid the only textbook I have is from when I actually went to fucking middle school. Uh, sorry, that wasn’t –”

“Class isn’t started yet, I don’t mind. Well, I’m sure Coran can lend you anything that’s in the library if I ask him to. By the way, today I’m introducing parables.”

“Ah. That.”

“What, that is something you could do with your eyes closed?”

Before Keith can answer – but Shiro does notice that his cheeks suddenly become a darker shade of pink – someone else walks inside the classroom and the conversation has to end there, but never mind. The answer was probably yes.

--

He can see clear as rain that the moment he announced the switch Keith was expecting other people to disagree or look at him wrong or something of the kind.

Instead, most of the class just shrugs and opens their textbooks and someone in the front says that it’s a good thing, at least it’s not going to be someone looking at them all like they’re a bunch of idiots. Keith’s face is exactly the face of someone who doesn’t know how to take a compliment at that – Shiro takes pity on him, clears his throat and moves on to explaining how to draw a parable on a graph, which ends up taking him the entire time allotted in between theory, trying to get people to solve some exercises and so on.

In that same amount of time, he doesn’t fail to notice how Keith stares at the board at certain moments as if he’s seeing a solution to the problem that’s not the one Shiro’s explaining, which is absolutely probable, but to his credit he doesn’t look annoyed when he has to rewrite an explanation more than twice and at least he’s not looking like he’s bored out of his mind. Also, at times he had to tell Zethrid to write things down as neatly and straightforward as possible, while Keith doesn’t need to be told any such thing – it’s obvious that he knows how to write things so that his audience gets it. When their time’s up, everyone else has left and Keith’s packing his bag, he clears his throat.

“Was it so bad?” He asks.

“Uh… fine, no,” Keith admits, still with his back turned at him. “But it’s weird.”

“How so?”

“No one minded?” He shrugs again, throwing his backpack over his shoulders and turning over to look at Shiro.

“That you were writing in my place?”

“It’s just – never mind. Back when I was in school, people who did… that, were show-offs. I guess.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Shiro says, imagining the situation already. “Or better, I never believed there was anything wrong with showing off if you have the skills.”

“Lucky you. Shit, sorry, I’m sounding like an asshole.”

Shiro would like to guess the right combination of words to communicate how much he really doesn’t care if Keith… sounds like an asshole or whatever, but he figures he doesn’t have it yet.

“I don’t think you are and even if it was the case – really. I’m off the clock. You are off the clock. No one cares if you swear. And yeah, well, I could afford to be a show-off back in the day, never mind that for some reason people always liked me well enough and never seemed to mind. I imagine it wasn’t as nice wherever you came from?”

“Not really. But I still was an asshole.”

“Good for you that I have a really high tolerance for real assholes, or I wouldn’t teach where I usually do.”

Honestly, he thought it was a fairly bad joke, but then Keith actually cracks a half-smile which disappears a second later. Too bad that Shiro did see it and – okay. He had managed to keep his attraction under check and honestly, given what has just gone down he had… sort of tried to forget about it momentarily, and he had managed, but now that he’s seen how Keith looks like when he’s not scowling or obviously not enjoying his surroundings or so tired he could sleep for a week, his stomach about… turns over on itself, but not in the bad way.

Shit, he’s so over in his head it’s not even funny.

“Hey, it’s true, most of the people over there are assholes for real.”

“Can’t disagree with that. Well, uh, thank you. See – see you next Monday, I guess?”

“Sure. It’s still parables next time.”

“Oh. Got it. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Not for you, Shiro thinks as Keith rushes out of the room – he should, too, or he’ll lose the last bus. Definitely not for you.

He locks the door, and damn it, but he’s… actually looking forward to next Monday.

Damn it. He’s really, really screwed, isn’t he?

--

Next Monday, things go swimmingly – damn, having someone at the blackboard who wants to be there does make a difference to his mood, and Keith’s too, since he’s not obviously bored out of his mind.

So swimmingly that just before Keith rushes out as usual, Shiro asks him if he’d bring over his infamous math textbook next time.

Keith gives him a dumbfounded look but then says that sure, he will, and the next Wednesday he arrives ten minutes earlier and dumps on Shiro’s desk a couple of heavy-ish middle school textbooks. Shiro opens one and looks through it – it’s ten years old and kind of outdated (and most probably bought used in the first place) but it’s fairly good for what it’s supposed to do. Of course, being middle school it doesn’t go further than basic analytic geometry, but it’s decent enough for its purpose. Then he moves on to the second and realizes that the former was only theory, the second was the exercises workbook. He opens that too, after glancing at Keith who’s in turn staring out of the window and everywhere but at him, and –

Holy shit, he almost blurts out loud. There is every single exercise or problem solved, which he had expected, but going forward he realizes that some of the most complicated ones were solved twice or thrice, all with a different procedure. All within the realm of possible, of course, but now he’s really not surprised that Keith could solve his test the way he did.

“Is this the only one you have?” Shiro asks. Damn, in a few minutes’ time people will start coming in and this conversation requires more than a few minutes.

Keith shrugs. “I read some others from the library, but not that many. I mean, the one near where I live only has stuff at that level anyway. Can I have them back?”

“Uh, sure.” Shiro lets him take them and it’s kind of obvious that he’s fairly protective of both textbooks, but he doesn’t know the story so who is he to judge?

Next Wednesday, before going to class, he looks at his shelves for a long moment. His first-year university textbook – which he dumped in favor of a more in-depth text one semester in and is therefore almost new – stares back at him from the shelf. Admittedly, it was all things he’d done in the last year of high school, so it just was redundant, and it still is redundant – he’s never used it in class.

He thinks, would he take it as an offense?

Then he shrugs and puts it in his bag – something tells him it won’t end up terribly, and anyway he doesn’t even need it for his own courses, he never really liked the approach it used in the first place.

That evening, as Keith packs his bag, he clears his throat when everyone else has gone.

“Listen,” he says, opening his bag one-handed and taking out the text, “this should have been my textbook for the first year in uni, but I never really used it.”

“What?”

“They moved me to an advanced class and it ended up being too easy. And there’s others I like better for my Garrison classes, so I really don’t need it. If you want it, just take it.”

Keith just stares at him. “You’re serious.”

Shiro shrugs. “I haven’t even opened it in what, ten years? Really, it’s just taking up space and I never really found a use for it, you might as well have it.”

“Why?”

“At least you don’t get bored solving the same exercise fifteen times.”

At that Keith kind of snorts and looks at the side, a slight blush rising to his cheeks. “I don’t mind. I like getting to the bottom of things.”

“Well, that one has another hundred at least you can solve fifteen times, if you want to knock yourself out. The content is basically… what you’d do in the last year of high school or so, just slightly more complicated.”

“Are – are you sure?”

“Please, I need more room in the shelves anyway.”

Keith takes a deep breath, then reaches over for the book. “Okay. Thanks then.”

“Let me know how it is,” Shiro replies.

“Sure. See you on Friday.”

Then he’s gone again. Shiro sighs deeply, zips up his blissfully lighter bag and locks the room. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing here, but it’s not he has a crush, or so Lance would say, or at least not all of it. Fine, he still sort of has it, but the point is, he likes to think he’s good at teaching, and a fundamental part of it would be recognizing people with potential and giving them a chance to shine, and seeing that great a waste of potential is both sad and professionally insufferable.

Who even doesn’t understand they have someone that skilled in front of them?

--

When Lance calls him late in the following morning, he’s doing what little exercise his doctor prescribed him – good thing that he has a check-up appointment in a week and maybe they can start with physical therapy already – and, as usual, wishing Slav would just shut up instead of repeating every curse word he utters whenever he moves his right arm.

“Uhm, Shiro?” Lance says, “we have a situation.”

“What? A situation?”

“Er, yeah, I’m at the workforce management office.”

“Why would you be there?”

“Wait a moment – sorry, I had to check no one was hovering behind me.”

“The hell, Lance?”

“The situation is with your cr – I mean, the coffee machine janitor.”

“… A situation.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, he was on break or something and he was reading some halfway brand new textbook, one of the people from your class that you, uh, argued with in front of the coffee machine noticed and now they’re saying he stole it from one of their bags. He says you gave it to him at the community college but goes unsaid that the workforce management person isn’t buying it. I was passing by and I heard the whole thing and I might have intruded and told that we should call you to verify the entire story.”

“And couldn’t they have called me in the first place?”

“Shiro, you think they’re interested in a confirmation?”

“Hell – okay, put me through. I mean, are you outside the room?”

“Do you think I could have told you all of that in those terms if I was inside?”

“Go in and put me on speaker.”

“Right. Wait a moment.”

He heard Lance open a door and coming into the room, then –

“Okay, I have him on speaker. Professor Shirogane?”

“Lance? Can everyone hear me?”

He hears a bunch of yeses. Good.

“Right. Who’s the responsible person here?”

“That would be me, professor.”

Shit. Iverson. Why did it had to be the head of the department? Shiro hates Iverson, damn it.

“Right. What is the story you’ve been told? The one that doesn’t include me, I mean.”

“The students assure me that they had checked out that book from the library and couldn’t find it anymore, and found it with Mr. Kogane here not long later. Honestly, it’s absolutely outrageous that –”

“Iverson, Mr. Kogane is in fact a student at the community college class I’m teaching. Also, I’ve never used that book in my class and I’m fairly sure Lance doesn’t use it either, since he follows my indications. Lance?”

“Er, yeah, of course. I didn’t put it in the required reading list, it’s all online.”

“Right. Also, all Garrison library books are marked on the first page. Can anyone check if it actually is?”

He hears rustling, then –

“It’s not marked,” Iverson admits.

“Great. Now, if you look at the last page, there’s a tear in the back and what used to be Matt Holt’s phone number ten years ago written in red on the top of the page.”

“… It’s true,” Iverson says, “but why would Matt Holt’s –”

“Because it was my textbook ten years ago and I did it in fact lend it to Mr. Kogane for further exercising, so how about you listen to both sides of the story next time and avoid bothering me? That said, I hope there will be some consequences.”

Iverson starts sputtering some apologies from which Shiro deduces that for those three there will be no consequence.

“Right. Is this matter solved?”

“Of course!”

“Then I think Lance can put me off speaker, thanks.”

He hears a lot of rustling and people leaving the room, and he expects Lance to end the call, but it seems like he has forgotten and just shoved the phone into his coat.

“Hey.”

Uh, was that Keith? He can hear him fine enough, but Lance usually shoves the phone into his front pocket and he has a fairly nice model, you can hear.

“Yeah? Can I help you?”

For a moment Shiro hears nothing, then –

“Uh, thanks. I mean, if you hadn’t showed up they’d have never checked.” It feels like Keith’s pulling out teeth as he says that, or maybe like he doesn’t have many chances to thank people for something.

“No problem,” Lance replies. “I was here on a scholarship, I’m not that fond of entitled idiots either.”

“Right. Well, uh, thanks again. I’ll just go, better they don’t catch me not working when my break’s over.”

Shiro hears someone walking away quickly, and a moment later Lance reaches for the phone and realizes it was on the entire time, because –

“Shit, Shiro, I thought I closed the call. You heard everything?”

“I did. Shit, they really wanted him fired?”

“Seems like it. Do I have to be more of a bastard than usual to those three in class?”

“If you can pull it off.”

“Hey, who do you take me for? Sure. I can pull it off. That said, you really gave him that book?”

“I did. He, uh, he’s good.”

“I imagined,” Lance says. “Well, I’ve gotta go, I should try and eat some lunch if there’s still any left. Don’t be a stranger and don’t kill your bird.”

I wish, Shiro doesn’t answer as Lance closes the call for real this time.

He just hopes those idiots didn’t undo everything, with all the effort he put into getting Keith to take the damned thing in the first place.

--

The next day, the last thing he expects is Keith coming in half an hour before the usual time.

“… Aren’t you a bit early?”

“Suddenly Iverson decided that my request to come in earlier and leave earlier was accepted,” he snorts. “I even have to think yesterday’s mess wasn’t all that bad after all, since at least I can get out when I’d like to.”

“Listen, I’m sorry that –”

“It’s fine, they’d have found something else sooner or later if it wasn’t that book. Just, thanks for clarifying it. I figured they wouldn’t listen to me but when I said they should call you – let’s just say it was a good thing your TA was there.”

“Definitely. Still, it’s not fair.”

“Whatever. Life’s not fair. That said, that’s – I mean, it’s a good book.”

“At least it’s worth the hassle?”

“Yeah, it’d be. I guess I’m not gonna risk parading it around though. Lest someone thinks I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Listen, I have a feeling you’re ahead of that book in the first place. Or you’ll be fairly soon.”

“Yeah, sorry if I’m not too convinced.”

Shiro should probably keep his mouth shut.

He usually has always been fairly good at never speaking out of turn.

Usually.

“Hasn’t anyone ever noticed that you’re good at math?”

Keith shrugs, then looks at Shiro as if he’s trying to gauge whether he should tell him to fuck right off or not, and then –

“Who was going to? I’m taking a GED, says all.”

“Says nothing,” Shiro says. “If you didn’t finish high school for whatever reason it doesn’t make you completely useless.”

Keith shrugs, then takes a seat. “Fine, but point is, there literally was no one.” He shrugs. “My father died when I was four. I don’t have a clue about my mother – she was never there and he wouldn’t say. I think I changed some four group homes before middle school and Middle of Nowhere, Texas, isn’t exactly someplace people will notice you’re good at anything. When I went to high school it was the fifth group home, and everyone thought that I was cheating if I was good at anything, then the place I was living in lost its state funding and they pulled us out of school and – I could have gone somewhere else, but what was the fucking point? I just started working because I wanted to be out of there. I’m only taking this class now because it’s the first time in my life I’m not sharing a room with anyone and I have enough money saved and I want to make some kind of statement, but that’s about it.”

“… What statement is it that you’d like to make?” Shiro asks, taking the rest in and trying to not look as if he’s sorry, because while he is and now he understands a lot of things, he has a feeling the last thing Keith wants is Shiro telling him he’s sorry or looking like he is.

“That I didn’t flunk high school because I couldn’t do it.”

Right. Fair, Shiro thinks. “And after then, if I can ask?”

Keith shrugs. “Well, I guess with that piece of paper I can aim higher than cleaning bathrooms. If you don’t have it no one will even consider you for jobs that aren’t… about what I do now.”

That’s fair, too. Shiro had figured it’d be something like that. And still –

“You don’t sound too happy about it.”

“The point is making a living, not being happy.”

“What if I told you that with some more effort you could get a Garrison scholarship?”

Keith drops the notebook he had been taking out of his bag and stares at him in a way that almost makes Shiro cower. His face is saying if you’re lying to me I might do something really stupid, not that Shiro doesn’t understand where he comes from. “Excuse me?”

“Listen, you’re good. You’re already ahead of this entire class. I’ve seen people qualifying for scholarships there with a lot less skill – that problem you solved the first time? I had to teach people in first year how to solve it like that. If you do some extra work off hours, you’ll be caught up before the semester ends.”

“And I should… apply to the Garrison? Are you serious?”

“You have to pass a test in order to get into the bachelor’s degree and you need to have some kind of thesis project to propose them ahead of it maybe, but if I can do my job I know you could.”

“If you can do your job?”

“I should be able to recognize people who have potential to go ahead from people who just want a degree and to be done with it.”

He holds Keith’s stare even if he still feels like he’ll burn if he keeps on doing it for much longer, because if he doesn’t then he’s not making his point and if he doesn’t make it now he never will.

“You’re serious.”

“Deadly.”

“And how should I do extra work? Because I doubt I can get as far as passing an elite university test going off textbooks.”

Which is an entirely fair point.

“I have a friend who owns a fairly nice coffee shop. Meet me there when you’re off shift Tuesday and Thursday and you’ll be caught up by the time you can apply.”

“… Seriously?”

Shiro shrugs. “Why not?” He doesn’t know if it’s a good idea, not when he – as Lance puts it – has a crush, but damn it, no reason he can’t stay professional while he does this. And honestly, one thing is that he likes Keith, the other is that he hates seeing wasted potential and people who do his job not doing it right.

“Please tell me you aren’t doing it because you feel sorry for me or something.”

“No, I’m doing it because if I see promising students I like to help them out because it’s my job and if the entire system failed you now I don’t see why I should be part of it, too.”

He wonders how long the staring contest will go, good thing they still have fifteen minutes before classes start, but then something in the way Keith’s holding himself up goes slack and the look in his eyes isn’t as hard anymore as he breathes in and says, “Tuesday I work in the morning and I have Thursday free, for now.”

“Great. So, Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning work for you?” Shiro holds out his hand.

He tells himself he doesn’t shiver when Keith shakes it.

“Deal,” he replies, and he’s almost smiling as he says it.

Shiro doesn’t know what the hell he just got himself into, but he thinks he really wants to find out.

--

The next Tuesday afternoon, Shiro gets to Hunk’s bakery some thirty minutes before the time they had agreed on is up – shit, he really needs to stop feeling lightheaded at the prospect that they exchanged numbers, will he even survive this without passing for the stereotypical fourteen-year-old teenager he never quite was?

It has to be the universe’s revenge for all the times in his life when he heard but he’s so mature for his age or when his mother was told you’re so lucky your son never gets into any trouble or brings strange people home or argues with his parents just because. It has to be.

Damn it, he can’t honestly be freaking out over what he’s doing at his damned age, and the thing is, he’s not even hiding it.

“Man, the hell’s wrong with you?” Hunk asks him as he hands him his usual tea. “I mean, you look like you’ll freak out for something and I’ve never seen you fazed in your entire life.”

“I’m not freaked out,” Shiro lies. “Uh, do you have a table that’s not… too noisy?”

“Do I have – oh. Oh. Right, is it your study date?”

Shiro almost spits the tea.

“What the fuck?”

“Lance talks to me, you know.”

… Why does Shiro tell Lance anything?

“And he told you I was on a study date?”

“He said you’d have murdered him if you knew he called it like that.”

“… I will.”

“No you won’t.”

“It’s not a date.”

“There’d be nothing wrong if it was, by the way.”

“There would! Or have you forgotten the part where he’s in my class?”

Hunk doesn’t look impressed at his outburst at all. “Yeah, and? You’re both old enough to drive, drink, vote and enlist in the army, I’m fairly sure we’re not talking about inappropriate things. Especially since it’s not like you can fail him – if the entire point is that he has to get a GED then I doubt you will be deciding whether he passed or not.”

That’s an entirely sensible point, but it’s nowhere near enough to make Shiro feel that much better about this situation.

“It’s not professional. This is already not professional.”

“Are they paying you?”

“… Okay, no, but –”

“Is he paying you?”

“Of course not!”

“Then you’re overthinking this. Listen, you needed something to get you out of the house? Well, you have it. You’re helping him out, which I’m sure he appreciates, you’re doing what the Garrison pays you for, more or less, it’s not like you’re somehow putting other students down at the same time because from what I gather the entire point is that he’s miles ahead while they just need to pass the exam and be done with it, there’s literally nothing you’re doing wrong here. Unless giving people free tutoring is wrong but hey, it’s your time and his time. Calm the hell down and have a muffin.”

“… Thanks,” Shiro settles on, because honest, there was nothing logical he could find to reply and maybe he really should just take it easy. He drinks his tea and takes the muffin to the secluded table Hunk tells him to head for, and he eats the damned muffin while he tries to come back to some semblance of dignity.

Then Keith comes in by the time he’s finished the muffin, asked for a tea refill and managed to pull out every textbook he brought one-handed, and Shiro is really glad his face was half-hidden by the tea cup because he’s not sure of the face he pulled when seeing Keith out of his work get-up.

Because sure as hell skinny black jeans and faux dark red leather jacket are a lot better fit on him than the janitorial uniform.

He finishes his drink and waves him forward.

“Hey,” he says as Keith sits down, “did you make it all right?”

“Yeah, it was fairly easy to find. I hope I wasn’t late?”

“No, I was early. Anyway, if you want to get anything before we get a feeling of the situation –”

“I’m good, thanks. Unless –”

“Having anything is not required,” Hunk interrupts showing up next to them, “but since Shiro’s a friend and my master’s thesis wouldn’t have been as good without his input, I think I won’t lose money if you’ll have something on the house.”

Keith turns to look at him with the face of someone who’s not quite understanding the point. “Sorry?”

“Oh, sorry, I just – hi. I’m Hunk, the owner. I also was his student once, and then I decided I didn’t want to stay in the Garrison until retirement because life is too short and I don’t want to spend it in a perpetual dick size comparison contest with other people. And if you pick something it’s totally on the house.”

“I – uh, thanks? But there’s no need to –”

“Of course there isn’t the need, I’m offering. The cherry pie came out fairly well, if you need input.”

“… Okay, then I guess I’ll go with it. If it’s fine, I mean –”

“Cherry pie, good. How do you take your coffee?”

“Black, but –”

“Excellent, I’ll be back shortly. Have fun,” Hunk says before dashing behind the counter. Shiro kind of wants to find Keith’s baffled expression amusing, but he doesn’t know if laughing right now is a good idea.

“He does that with everyone’s friends, don’t worry.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

“He’s that nice,” Shiro shrugs. “Anyhow, I guess that we should, well, assess the situation. As I said last time.”

“I don’t know how much is there to assess.”

“Well, I know for sure I don’t have to explain you the basics of hyperboles.”

“Of course not, I mean – shit, I did it again, didn’t I?”

“What?”

“… Sound like I was bragging?”

“It’s not bragging if you’re good at it. Do you have the infamous uni textbook with?”

“Oh, yes. I haven’t gone through everything, I mean, I stopped halfway through the integrals.”

So, halfway through.

Shiro takes it as Keith slides it over the table and goes straight to the part with the exercises.

He’s not surprised to see that the ones that are completed are not only solved right, but that some are more than once. From what it seems Keith’s stopped at the first level integrals, but he also went through all the basic trigonometry on his own and more, so in theory that’s also something he doesn’t need to go over.

“So, you have the second-degree integrals left, out of the basic stuff,” Shiro says. “And let me guess, you like getting to the bottom of things, don’t you?”

“As in?”

“No one who solves the same equation thrice in three different ways doesn’t like to analyze it in detail.”

Keith shrugs. “All right, fine. It’s just – it makes sense, I guess?”

“Makes sense how?”

“It’s logical? If you find the solution that’s how it is, and there’s always some way to figure it out?”

“I feel like you’d have hated humanities.”

“What, people who read a book and then think it says something and then other people think that it’s the complete contrary? Please, I’ll pass. But how is that any relevant?”

“It’s relevant to what you might want to do later, but never mind that for now. What I want to know is, how familiar are you with the concept of complex numbers?”

“… I’m not? I mean, it might’ve been mentioned in passing on some of the library books, but –”

“Put it in very blunt terms, it’s numbers made up partly by real ones and part by… an imaginary part of the number in question, and you can write them down on a plane if the horizontal axis is the real part and the vertical… the imaginary part. In extremely blunt terms. And you can use them in more than one field, of course – ah, wait, there you go.”

“Sorry?”

“The moment I launched into that explanation your eyes almost started glowing or something. Which makes me think that you might not know anything about this but you’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

“… You got me, I guess?”

“So there’s at least that to assess.”

“Okay, fine, you’ve got a point, but – are you sure it’s even worth your time?”

“Shiro never does things that aren’t worth his time,” Hunk chimes in, saving Shiro from having to find some way to phrase it that didn’t sound completely fucking stupid, and he slides a cherry pie slice and a cup of coffee in front of Keith and one of the triple chocolate muffins in front of him, along with a cup of green tea. “Also, seriously, the moment he mentioned complex numbers you looked like he was showing you some porn, not math.”

Keith most definitely almost chokes on his coffee. “Not that complex numbers aren’t somewhat porn, if that’s what you like for a living – as far as I’m concerned it was pretty cool shit and that was it – but seriously, dude, stop fretting, you’re talking with the only bastard who allotted in his schedule double the hours of talking to students than about everyone in the entire damned Garrison, he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to be. By the way, that test of yours? Badass. And now sorry, I’ve got to make people some more coffee.”

Shit, Shiro doesn’t say.

“Uh,” Keith asks, “did he see that infamous test?”

“Er,” Shiro says, “I kind of couldn’t believe it so I needed another set of eyes to confirm me I hadn’t made it up. Sorry if –”

“No, it’s okay, I mean, at least you weren’t assuming I was cheating, but – did he just call it badass?”

“He said that it didn’t look likely that you were cheating and therefore you were wasted in a GED class, yes. I guess badass can apply.”

“Oh,” Keith says. “It’s just – he didn’t even know me or anything.”

“No.”

“And he still thought it was… that good?”

“Maybe it’s because it is that good.”

Then Keith seems to remember that he still has that pie to start, and he takes a bite.

“Oh. This is also good.”

“Tell him later. So, complex numbers?”

“Let me finish the pie and I’m game.”

Shiro smirks behind his mug as he sips his tea, and thinks, now that’s an attitude that suits him way more than wondering if he’s worth my time.

--

“Guys, not to pry, but in theory I’m closing.”

What the hell, Shiro thinks, and checks the time.

Crap, it’s seven-thirty. They’ve been here since five PM and he didn’t… even notice.

“What – oh. Oh,” Keith says, sounding mortified. “Did we seriously discuss things for that long?”

“Seems like it,” Shiro says. “Okay, I think we should be out of your hair.”

“Hey, if I was open in the evenings I’d have kept you longer but I do have a life outside working,” Hunk says, staring at Shiro as if he wants him to admit that he doesn’t, which… is pretty much true, as sad as it is.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t want to keep you from your earned leisure time. Uh, is it all right if we come back on Thursday?”

“Shiro, don’t insult me asking dumb questions that are way below your smarts and show up whenever you want. And, dude? Your test was that good. Make peace with it.”

With that, he disappears in the kitchen to clean up and Shiro stands up to get blood flowing in his legs again, and then looks down to find Keith putting Shiro’s stuff back in his bag.

And then he stops midway –

“Uh, sorry, I assumed you might have wanted to avoid it –”

“Given that it’d take me way longer if I did it, you assumed well. It’s fine, I’m not going to take it personally.”

Keith shrugs as he closes it. “I knew some people who’d have been offended. So, uh, should I just –”

“Take that exercise book I gave you and have fun with the complex numbers exercises, then we can discuss it on Thursday. For tomorrow I’m doing another surprise test you’ll probably sleep through, so don’t bother revising everything.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I can skip it. Seriously, thanks. I just –”

“Guys, I’m closing!”

Right. Shiro grabs his bag and gets out of the bakery, Keith trailing behind him while Hunk puts the chairs on the tables – they did really overstay, didn’t they?

“You’re welcome,” Shiro tells him. “And really, it’s not like I’d be doing this if I didn’t want to.”

“Fine, but – never mind. It’s my problem, not yours.”

Shiro’s about to tell him that it’s fair and that really, he hasn’t had a student he’d even consider as a TA since Lance and Lance graduated two years ago, so it’s not as if he’s not technically doing his job here –

“Fuck, the bus is coming. Uh, see you tomorrow!”

Right. Shiro waves back halfheartedly as Keith runs towards the stop and manages to get on the bus, and he goes to the opposite side of the road to wait for his.

It’s almost April. His course ends in late May. The GED exams are in June.

As his bus rolls by and he steps on it, he wonders, will I survive doing this until May, and he thinks about Keith’s sort of dejected face as he said it’s my problem, and –

He hates the system. He really, really does.

--

The day after, he’s entirely not surprised that Keith finishes the test in fifteen minutes and that it’s entirely correct.

The day after that, he comes back with half of the exercises on Shiro’s uni-level textbook solved twice.

“I didn’t have time to go through all of it,” Keith shrugs as Shiro stares down at his notebook – it’s all neatly written, only a few exercises have corrections and of course the solutions are all correct.

“Sounds to me like I don’t need to explain it to you twice,” Shiro says. “You want to do some more before we move on to the next topic?”

“I – maybe? I mean, it’s – I wanted to do more but work kicked my ass these last two days.”

“Well, go ahead.”

And thing is – sometimes Shiro gives him a tip here and there, but in the next two hours, they’ve gone through the entire section of complex numbers related exercises, they’ve gone through two pieces of pie that Hunk refuses to get paid for and Keith looks like the kind of person who could and would spend all of his time doing that, given the chance.

“Guys,” Hunk says, grabbing their plates, “not to pry, but I’m closing in five. Next time set an alarm – wait, is that complex numbers?”

“Yeah?” Keith asks, sounding somewhat on the defensive.

“Wait, that’s what he was explaining to you last time. Wait, and you got as far as this in three days?”

“… I guess so?”

“Say,” Hunk tells him, “I have a few old textbooks about how you apply that shit to computer engineering, I needed that for my master’s. That stuff is not around anymore outside of libraries, though. If you wanna read them, I can just bring them over.”

“… Seriously?”

“Why not? Heck, my boyfriend is more into theoretical shit, he tends to nope out when I get into the beauty of actually applying that to the real world.”

Keith stares at Hunk, then – “It – it’d be nice. Thank you?”

“Good, at least I can talk about it with someone that’s not my advisor who keeps on telling me I should get back to academia. And now scram, if you two stay here any longer I’m not coming back home in time for Masterchef.”

Shiro hightails his way out – if there’s one thing he learned in years of knowing them, is to not get in the way of the time Hunk and Lance devote to Gordon Ramsay first and private matters later.

“Has he really – I mean, does he really want to lend me his stuff?”

“He’s friendly like that.”

“He doesn’t even know me.” Keith doesn’t sound like he’s processing the entire deal.

There’s a lot of things Shiro could reply to that.

Too bad they all sound massively wrong.

“You came to his shop twice and he saw you with me, good thing he trusts me. So, see you tomorrow? I’m taking a break from algebra to see how many people actually studied probability.”

“Not many,” Keith shrugs again. “I mean, it wasn’t covered in the first semester and most of us haven’t touched that shit since high school.”

“Good, then you’re getting a reprieve. And – shit, that’s my bus.”

“See you tomorrow,” Keith tells him as he walks to the stop on the other side of the road, and –

Was he actually smiling at him?

He only saw him for a split second before turning his back on him, so Shiro wouldn’t know, but if he hasn’t hallucinated the whole thing, it’s really a damned pity he doesn’t do that more often.

--

Three weeks later, they’ve discussing how to use complex numbers in dynamic equations and Shiro wishes he could have a word or ten with either Keith’s social workers or teachers or both because he’s never seen anyone grasp that kind of subject so quickly, and they’ve been over complex numbers that long because Keith insisted on eviscerating it. And when he didn’t eviscerate it with him, he was eviscerating it with Hunk – once he was late to their meeting and he had found the two of them discussing possible engineering applications of the aforementioned complex numbers.

How do you miss that? Surely he’d have managed a good scholarship, if someone noticed.

Too bad that, apparently, no one did. Actually, he should start planning how he could spin the entire thing so that Allura might agree to give the man a damned chance somehow when it comes to skip at least half of the process, which is going to be… complicated to say the least.

Well, he has three months to figure that out. Hopefully it’s enough.

For now, he’s walking inside the bakery after spending one damned morning doing physical therapy – it hasn’t even been a full month and he still dies inside at the prospect of going because it hurts like hell, but at least it means his arm is getting back some feeling and maybe this time next year he’s going to handle bringing around suitcases and bags and backpacks without taking extra precautions or overusing his left arm. He doubts they’re going to clear him for driving, but one man can hope.

“That bad?” Hunk asks as he sees him dragging himself to his usual table.

“I’m starting to miss the damned bird.”

“… Seriously?”

Shiro shrugs as he admits the sad truth. “Well, that’s how bad it is.”

“Can you say that again so I can make a video and send it to Lance, because he’ll never believe me if I say you admitted –”

“Forget it. And I’ll have a brownie.”

“Fine, fine, your funeral. By the way, I thought Lance was exaggerating when you said you had a crush, but he’s really not.”

“He’s what?”

“Shiro, I have a feeling our common friend hasn’t caught up to it just because he’s more emotionally stunted than you are.”

Shiro would like to say something – anything – but that’s when Keith gets into the shop and yeah, he’s so going to drop that subject.

“… Is something wrong?” Keith asks as he sits down.

“What? No, why?”

“Uh, sorry, you kinda look like death warmed over, if –”

“Oh, it’s just physical therapy. Never mind it, it’s a necessary evil. By the way,” he says, reaching into his bag with his left hand, “I shouldn’t be doing this but who is even going to know. And it’s not like it’s a surprise.”

He hands Keith the last test he corrected. Obviously, there’s an A stamped on it and there isn’t a hint of a correction, and Shiro even gave him a more difficult test than the others’, but at least like that they could pretend it took Keith more than ten minutes to finish it.

“… I never know,” Keith sighs as he looks at the test.

“You never know what?”

“Whenever I finish any of your damned tests and it takes me fifteen minutes at best. I feel like I must be getting something wrong anyway.”

“It’s because my tests are way behind your skill set and you know it. So.” He grabs his list of topics they need to go through for Keith to have a chance at a reasonably difficult master’s program, which is what Shiro thinks would work best for him at this point. “Complex numbers are definitely done and over. How do you feel about hypercomplex numbers?”

“I feel great about it, actually,” Keith says, and Shiro hadn’t seen anyone getting so excited about damned numbers since Lance and Lance – well, he’s still excited about his numbers, but being in academia for this long as somehow made him excited just when he’s working on a paper or researching, which is a thing that sadly happens too often for Shiro’s tastes.

“Good. Let’s see how much we can manage.”

--

They eventually manage to get through a fairly good portion of the theory – Shiro advises Keith to go through the exercises up to a certain point and they’ll see the day after tomorrow, and all the while he does notice Hunk staring at them more than usual.

He chooses to believe it’s because it’s a slow day.

Except that –

“Shiro,” Hunk tells him as he’s packing his bag after Keith leaves, “not to pry but… are you aware of how he looks at you?”

“Er, sorry, what?”

Hunk stares at him, then shakes his head and goes back to cleaning the counter. “Never mind. The next two months will be interesting.”

Shiro would really like to pursue the damned topic, but his bus will be here in five minutes and he has no time for it.

Never mind that Hunk’s seeing things – Keith isn’t looking at him in any weird way or whatever.

--

He goes to physical therapy regularly, they see each other regularly, his class also makes good progress when it comes to regular high school math, which is a good thing since Shiro does want them to get their GED or he’s not good at what he does, he regrets the day he started talking to himself when preparing his tests about probability because Slav heard him and now everything he croaks about is fucking percentages, and the day Keith comes back to the bakery with a few perfectly solved differential equations and actually, honestly grins when Shiro tells him that they’re perfect and he thinks he should really do that more often, he realizes that he should get a damned grip.

Too bad that it’s easier said than done, and to his shame (not that he ever thought of it as such until now) he never went through the ‘harboring ridiculous crushes’ phase when he was fifteen or so – he was too busy studying and anyway most people he hooked up with hit on him before he hit on them, so it never actually was in the cards.

He’s fifteen years too late for this, damn it.

Chapter Text

Then the end of April comes and it happens that throughout the entire last week of it Keith arrives in class looking like death warmed over as much as Shiro used to when he was starting physical therapy, and he probably doesn’t fall asleep at his desk just because he’s at the blackboard writing in his place. The two times they meet at the bakery he’s obviously paying attention and trying damn hard to, but Shiro ends up cutting things short and sparing him the last hour because it’s obvious he’ll fall asleep on him (and regardless, he does turn up with the correct exercises the next time).

On one side, he feels like he shouldn’t pry, but on the other –

On the other, he’s in too fucking deep and he cares, and even if he’s not harbored one single fantasy in which he fesses up and it doesn’t end badly – he has inquired after some of his students’ health if they looked really bad off in these last past years and he actually hadn’t known them somewhat personally.

Not at this level, anyway.

“Listen,” he tells Keith the next time, “you really look like shit. If I can ask – is something wrong?”

Keith stares at him same as he used to back when it was obvious he was testing him.

Then he shrugs minutely. “My rent just went up,” he sighs. “And given that I also have to eat and pay the bills, I had to ask Iverson for more hours.”

“… I have a feeling I know where this is going.”

“Where do you think it’s going?”

“Iverson’s an asshole and he’s probably hated you since that time I told him he should actually listen to both parties in a discussion, so he ended up giving you the shift starting at six AM?”

“… Sometimes I forget you work there, in theory,” Keith sighs. “Anyway. Yeah, that’s the problem. And it’s not like I can do anything about it – the apartment is shitty anyway and I can’t afford going even farther from the Garrison than I already am, I’d have to wake up at four AM anyway to even get there in time.”

“Damn,” Shiro sighs. “I’d say I’d like to help out, but –”

“Please, the last thing either of us needs is Iverson wondering if there’s something fishy going on. I’ll live.”

“Do you want – I don’t know, maybe we should stay here for less time or do it once per week? You’re really looking like you could use some rest and like this you’re not getting any.”

“No.”

Wow, Shiro thinks, that sounded almost… panicked? Or something very close to it. As if the prospect of cutting their private lessons time is really not what Keith wants.

“I mean – really, no. I like this. I want this. I don’t know if you’re being too optimistic about any chance I might have at making a job out of it and I honestly don’t even care that much, but – shit, let’s just say that I’m not giving up on the only two afternoons I have where I do something I actually like, all right?” He’s not quite looking at Shiro as he says it, but he sounds like he means it entirely and like he needs a hug or ten, and Shiro’s this tempted to touch his wrist or something but he doesn’t know about boundaries and he doesn’t want to jinx whatever this is, and –

And then he remembers something Lance told him the last time they talked.

“Wait,” he says, “I think maybe I know something that might help you out.”

“… Sorry?”

“Nothing to do with Iverson. Let’s just wait a moment until Hunk’s done giving those two girls horribly unhealthy beverages that don’t taste like coffee.”

Keith looks fairly puzzled but agrees and Shiro calls Hunk over when he has no clients left.

“Can I bring you something else?”

“No, but you could tell me what was Lance actually talking about when he said you wanted to rent out a room? He said something about it a couple of days ago, but that was it.”

Keith makes a face that’s obviously saying what the hell are you doing, but Shiro doesn’t mind him.

“Oh, that,” Hunk says. “Well, last month we cleaned out the attic – it was all old stuff from his sisters’ and his grandmother’s and so on and no one had a use for it anymore and we realized it’s actually larger than he remembered or that I knew of.”

Right, because they’re currently living in the house belonging to one set of Lance’s grandparents who both passed away due to old age and left it to him because he was the only one out of the nephews who had been in a relationship with someone for more than six months and looked like was about to settle down with a nice man, not that Lance’s sisters seem to be very bent on following in his footsteps from what he knows.

“Anyway, we checked and we could actually rent it – I mean, there’s enough space for a bed, bookshevels, a tv and so on. And while we aren’t starving making some more money can’t hurt. But we haven’t done anything about it because I mean, we should put pictures online and scan possible applicants and so on and neither of us has the time or the force of will right now. Why?”

Keith shakes his head frantically.

Shiro hopes that ignoring him won’t be a mistake.

“I think he needs relocating,” Shiro says, nodding towards Keith.

Keith groans. “Well, I kind of do, but really, I can live with –”

“Actually,” Hunk says, considering it, “that wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“… Sorry?”

Hunk shrugs. “I know you, I mean, you’ve come here for two months by now, I’m fairly sure you’re not some kinda deranged serial killer or anything. Lance knows who you are for sure and half of the problem was that we didn’t want to waste time wondering if we were renting the room to a halfway decent tenant, and if it was you we’d have skipped that part already. How much are you paying right now?”

“Er, it used to be about six hundred and fifty bucks per month. Now it’s seven hundred and seventy.”

“The hell? For what?”

“A studio apartment with a small kitchen and a bathroom with the smallest shower in existence.”

“Hm. Listen, can you come over to the back one moment?”

“… All – all right,” Keith says, tentatively, and follows Hunk behind the staff only door after Hunk puts a back in a moment sign on the door – at least the clients from before all wanted their drinks to go and Shiro’s the only one sitting at a table.

Keith comes back twenty minutes later looking like someone who can’t just fucking believe what happened to them while Hunk grins to himself as he goes back to the counter.

“So?” Shiro asks.

“So,” Keith says, sounding completely stunned, “turns out that they were thinking to charge a little less than rent I used to pay before, that they live a lot closer to the Garrison – obviously, that went unsaid, so he called your TA who went into some fairly weird laughing fit that sounded kind of creepy and then said that if it meant he didn’t have to waste time interviewing potential tenants I could move in there tomorrow as far as he cares?”

Shiro smirks. “Told you I had a solution.”

“Right, but – they didn’t have to?”

“You’re paying them,” Shiro says. “And it makes a lot of sense that they’d want someone they know already.”

“I guess,” Keith sighs, and then he looks up at Shiro again and there’s – he doesn’t know how Keith’s staring at him but he can’t remember the last time he was at the receiving end of such a… grateful look, maybe?

“Thanks,” he says quietly. “You didn’t have to.”

“Hey, I just helped three friends out, now if you take my parrot off my hands we’re set.”

“You have a… parrot?”

“A gift I couldn’t refuse, and I hate its existence. Jokes aside, it’s a win for both you and them, right?”

“True, but – what – did you say, three friends?”

Shiro shrugs and figures he’ll just go for it. It’s beyond ridiculous already anyway, he might make the situation slightly less so. “Keith, not to presume anything, but given that we’ve been doing this for months and I’m fairly sure most of your class has jumped to that conclusion already – if you want us to be, then why the hell not.”

“Huh,” Keith says, obviously contemplating the decision, and then – “I think I’d like that.”

“Good. Then that’s settled. So, you want to go through the rest of this chapter or not?”

“Definitely,” Keith replies with the tone of someone who’s just been given a joint birthday and Christmas present, and Shiro grins a little as he starts talking.

--

He doesn’t ask specifically, but since he was the one coming up with the idea, he’s kept in the loop enough to know that by mid-May Keith has moved into the attic, and therefore he’s not entirely surprised that five days after the move, when Shiro has to go back to the Garrison to sign some paperwork and assess the situation, Lance clears his throat the moment he walks into their currently joint office.

“Anything wrong?” Shiro asks.

“No,” Lance says, “but you could have said that our new tenant was the kind of person who’ll discuss dual numbers while making breakfast.”

“What, he makes breakfast?”

“He insists on account of the two of us having saved his sleeping patterns, or so he puts it, and since he can cook his bacon and Hunk’s only too glad if someone else cooks in his place no one’s stopping him.”

“Well, why do you think I lent him that book that sent the both of you to Iverson’s office?”

“That wasn’t the kind of book anyone who knows anything about dual numbers would even look over twice.”

“It was before I realized it fully, I guess, but I don’t think he actually knew about dual numbers at that point. Why do you think I’m at Hunk’s twice per week with him?”

“Because you’re crushing on him harder than my thirteen-year-old cousin on whoever’s her favorite One Direction member?”

“I’m not –”

“Shut up, you are.”

“That’s not why I’m doing it, though. Listen, I might have told him that if he catches up with what he’s missed he might apply for a bachelor’s here, even if honestly, it’d be a waste of his time, and he’s not going to get there if someone doesn’t give him some pointers.”

Lance, to his credit, doesn’t look at all surprised. He smirks, instead. “What, you’re looking to replace me now?” At least he’s not saying that seriously.

“Please, don’t even go there,” Shiro groans. “I don’t think he’d even want to teach in the first place and I have a feeling you’re a lot better suited to dealing with people. But if I had to put a team together for some research project – well, all things considered I still could give an arm to have someone like that on it.”

“Nice to see your terrible self-deprecating black humor is still there, I was starting to get worried.”

“Hilarious. No, honestly, I’ll eat my damned hat if he’s not the kind of person who’d thrive in research. So – no, unless you want to dump me in order to be someone else’s TA or to be Hunk’s accountant or whatever, you’re staying where you are and I’ll try to convince Allura to find a way to make him apply for something higher than a bachelor’s.”

“Fair,” Lance agrees. “As long as I keep my paycheck. Anyway, didn’t anyone seriously notice before you did?”

“Apparently not,” Shiro sighs. “So, is the third degree question-time over?”

“For now, but I imagine you aren’t aware that he talks about you as if you’re the best thing that’s happened to the universe since it was created?”

“Lance, stop bullshitting and give me back the other tests I need to grade,” Shiro groans, and chooses to ignore that Lance is cackling under his breath.

--

Are you aware that he looks at you as if you’re the best thing that’s happened to the universe since it was created.

Sometimes he thinks Lance should have gone for poetry and not math, he’d have had the talent for it.

Meanwhile he checks the application terms for anything that the Garrison has available. Now, the infamous GED exam is sometime mid-June. The tests are all in September and the last day to apply is at the end of July – that should be more than enough for Keith to decide what he wants to try and go for.

Admittedly, the bachelor’s is the only program where he shouldn’t send in some kind of research project plan to be admitted, with maybe a few exceptions, but it’s also the one where he’d be most wasted in since he already knows more stuff than what’s covered in the bachelor’s.

Thing is – before he had a distinct feeling, but after Keith’s reaction to his cutting hours proposals last month he’s sure that the man is nothing but someone who will achieve things if he wants to, and the only reason why he’s currently not doing it is that he had no means to do it.

Fuck that, he’s going to try and give him the prospects.

The next time they see each other, he doesn’t bring the textbook – by now they’ve gone through anything complex-numbers related and he’d bet six paychecks on Keith managing to pull most of that off in his sleep – and brings a folder with all the programs instead.

“… You’re serious about this,” Keith says.

“I’ve been extremely serious from the very beginning,” Shiro says. “And given that June’s next week, along with the last class I have at Altea, and that you have that GED test not long after, maybe you should start looking at your options.”

Keith swallows his coffee and starts thumbing through the printed sheets – his fingers shake a bit, but he reads all of them cautiously, obviously not skipping a line, and for ten minutes neither of them says a thing.

Then –

“I don’t know,” Keith sighs, “I don’t – I mean, it all looks amazing. And I know it is amazing – you overhear the lectures from the other side of the door. But look at the GPA requirements and shit – who even has a GPA? Mine in high school was horrid and the Altea classes don’t count. And that’s the bachelor’s – for most of everything else they want research projects and I’d have just one month and who even knows –”

“Calm down,” Shiro says, “and don’t rush so much. My old teacher used to say patience yields focus.”

“The hell?”

“Hey, it’s a lot less stupid than it sounds. What I mean is, do you want my very humble opinion?”

“Sure I do. Until now it seems like you did guess right.”

“Fine. Then, you’d be wasted at a bachelor’s. You’d be re-doing everything we’ve just done and you’d be surrounded by nineteen-year-olds at best, and looking at your face right now I have a feeling the last thing you want is being in a class full of people younger than you are.”

“Fuck, no.”

“Exactly what I thought. So, let’s say that I know you’ve been reading Lance’s analytical number theory books –”

“How would you know?”

“He’s still my TA. He finds it adorable, by the way.”

“I’m so poisoning his breakfast tomorrow. I swear it’s going to be mild poisoning.”

“However, seems to me like you do like something outside what we’re doing. And honest, I think you could get into one of the master’s programs with a good test result, and don’t mind the GPA, my boss is in charge of the master’s program and I know she’d ignore it if she saw that you could be an asset. Never mind that if you were in a master’s you’d be done faster and you’d know whether you want to go on, and should you choose to do it I’m fairly sure people would murder to have you on research duty.”

“I really doubt –”

“You’re cut for that, if you ask for my still humble professional opinion. Now, never mind that it’s complicated and it’s going to be hard, but if you concentrate on getting the GED now and then work on the rest for the next month and prepare the application well, you’re definitely getting admitted to the test, and if you do then you might have to work your ass off during the rest of the summer but you would pass.”

“You sound awfully sure.”

“Because I recognize potential when I see it and I have a feeling that if you really want something, you’d do anything to get it. Or am I wrong?”

“No,” Keith admits, “but it’s just been a damned long time since I wanted something that hard that wasn’t finding a way to cut down the costs from electricity bills.”

“I think that’s a bit above your paycheck.”

“Well, I’m not even paying it right now because those two won’t let me and keep on saying that however much electricity I use in one room isn’t really enough to bother finding out how much exactly I’d owe them, but that’s not the point. This wouldn’t be above my paycheck, though?”

“No,” Shiro replies, and he’s damn fucking sure of it.

Keith looks down at the folder again.

Then he smirks ever so slightly.

“Fuck that, all right.”

“Are you agreeing?”

“I’m still halfway sure that you’re being too optimist but I might want this enough that I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Good. Then I say that for the next two weeks I let you breathe and you get your piece of paper, then we plan for the rest. And give me that benefit, you’re getting in.”

“You still sound way too awfully sure.”

“Listen, how about you promise me something?”

“As in?”

“If you get in, will you stop listening to your middle school teacher already?”

Shiro doesn’t know what was so funny about that, but a moment later Keith about bursts out laughing enough that he cries and has to wipe tears with one of the bakery’s paper napkins, and that small voice keeps on telling Shiro, he should do this more often.

“You’ve got a deal,” Keith replies, breathless, and if Shiro forgets to breathe, too, for a moment, then no one’s there to notice it.

--

By the time his last class at Altea rolls by, Shiro can be satisfied knowing that all his students will pass the math section of the GED test at least – hopefully they will also pass the others. Meanwhile after months of sweating and wishing he had taken a taxi that blasted evening he has regained enough motion in his damned arm that he can at least move it around instead of dragging it around like dead weight – too bad that he has physical therapy for at least the entire summer. He knows that the test is sometime at the end of the month so he doesn’t contact Keith because he figures the man might need to study also for the other subjects.

And, sadly, he’s well enough that he can go back to the Garrison for the final semester’s exams – he’d have left that to Lance very willingly, but his leave is over and he’s not so bad off that he can’t at least supervise.

“Welcome back,” Lance tells him as he walks back inside his study for the first time since the incident. “I tried to keep it neat. The tests are all there, I haven’t looked at them yet but I figured you should have a go at them first – by the way, Hunk says that if you don’t fess when it comes to Keith you’re welcome not to as long as he doesn’t move out.”

“Sorry?”

Lance looks entirely too amused for Shiro’s tastes. “The kitchen sink broke down and he fixed it, which was indeed very convenient. And he’s sure that if you fess up he’d inevitably move in with you, so –”

“Is my love life the only topic you two ever discuss?”

“Of course not, but it’s currently hilarious. By the way, I have a feeling our three friends from the beginning of the semester might have failed their class, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“I won’t put it on the list of reasons why you should think about a career change. And now let’s get to work.”

Shiro hands Lance the lower half of the stack of papers and takes the first for himself.

Two hours later, it’s confirmed that those three failed their finals, not that either him or Lance were surprised, and four hours later it’s double checked and it’s past six in the evening.

“Well,” Shiro says, “three quarters of them passed and out of the others a good half was scraping by, I think you can be proud of yourself.”

“Good, because I might have applied to teach some of the summer classes. Extra money is extra money.”

Fair point, Shiro figures. He groans – he so doesn’t want to go home and spend another two hours with Slav chattering about damned probability, since he’s still stuck on that. Then again, it’s not as if he has any choice.

“By the way, this is for you.”

“What?”

Lance hands Shiro an envelope. “From Keith – something happened to his phone that he hasn’t specified and he said he didn’t want to search for you here, which is not a stupid idea given that Iverson hasn’t forgotten this winter’s episode. So, he asked if I’d be so nice to give it to you – don’t worry, I haven’t read it.”

“Thanks.” Shiro opens the envelope and takes out a piece of paper folded in two. It’s not a long message.

The test is on the 20th, we apparently get results within one week. If you haven’t changed your mind we can meet at the bakery or wherever is better for you from then on. Thank you.

Huh. “Tell him I’m fine with the bakery, just the usual three days from Altea’s course rather than two if he’s fine with it. Or if he has a better idea –”

“Shiro, just come over to our place.”

“What?”

“That attic’s large and it’s not like we’d pry, we have a job. At least like that you have the time you need and then I can drive you back if it’s late.”

“Well, if he’s fine with it –”

“I’ll let you know,” Lance says with a glint in his eyes that Shiro doesn’t necessarily like.

But still, it would be more convenient than the bakery, would it?

--

Keith’s fine with it, or so it seems, and on the 21st Shiro is at Lance and Hunk’s place at five PM and he hopes he hasn’t pulled some ridiculous face when Keith opens the door with wet hair – shit, he’s probably just taken a shower, hasn’t he?

“Uh, how did the test go?”

“I think it went fine,” Keith says. “I mean, it should’ve. Worst case scenario, I might not have scored that high in the social studies section.”

“No one looks at that when reviewing applications. And on that… I guess it’s better if we’re sitting down.”

“Oh. Of course. Just – it’s upstairs.”

The attic is indeed fairly large – it has a bed and bookshelves and a small desk with a second-hand laptop on it that takes up most of it. The bookshelves are littered in what looks like cheap paperbacks (all scifi, Shiro notices, or at least most of what he can see without checking thoroughly) and photocopies of math books that, when Shiro checks, turn out to come from the Garrison’s library.

“Er,” Keith says as he notices that Shiro noticed, “Lance might’ve lent me his card.”

“Well, good. Means you’ve gone forward, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Keith says. “Well, some. I mean, I needed something to read to relax while studying for the other test.”

“Like what?”

Keith shrugs and hands him a very battered paperback.

“… You relax while reading An Eternal Golden Braid?” Shiro asks, and a moment later he thinks, why am I even surprised?

“Hey, it’s nothing too heavy,” Keith replies sheepishly. “I mean, I know… other people read novels but who’s had time to buy any lately? Anyway, this is what I’ve done lately that was not relaxed reading. I don’t even know if the results are right because I got them from a book without solutions.”

It’s all concerning endomorphisms, which they had discussed but hadn’t gone very deep into. Not yet.

“I’m not seeing any obvious mistake,” Shiro says, and then he thinks, why not. “And this is damn impressive. Actually – wait a moment.”

He grabs one of the books he had brought with and then looks for it – if he doesn’t remember wrong… oh, yes.

“Okay. Listen, thing is, if you want to apply for that scholarship you have to impress my boss. And it’s hard enough to impress Allura, but if you can do that, I think you can also do this.”

Keith grabs the book and reads the headline.

“Spectral theorem? What?

“Yeah. Just – don’t look at the explanation, just at the definition.”

“A result about when a linear operator or matrix can be diagonalized? But like, there’s more than one kind of?”

“Exactly. Now, let’s say I don’t tell you anything about how you go on to solve one of them, I’ll show you in a moment. You think you can give it a try?”

“Like – just like this?”

“Just like this.”

Keith shrugs and grabs a pen from the desk, turning his notebook to a fresh page. Shiro gives him the input to try and crack the finite-dimensional case.

He bites down on his lower lip as he starts writing down and he stays utterly and completely focused on the page as he keeps on scribbling. Sometimes he crosses off some parts and starts again, but he’s definitely working on it knowing how he should move – he works on it for a good forty minutes before he shrugs and hands Shiro the notebook.

It’s not entirely correct, there are a few mistakes towards the end, but it has to be because they might not have gone in deep over algebraically closed fields, but other than that –

Other than that –

“It’s almost right,” Shiro says. Keith’s face sort of falls at that, and Shiro can see that he’s thinking something along the lines of damn, I did it wrong – “Which means that I’m keeping this for now, then we’re spending another week on the things that made you not get it immediately right and then we’re trying again.”

“Why would you keep it?”

“Because you got it almost right at the first try. If you get it right at the second or third and my boss can see the progress, she’ll definitely be impressed.”

“But –”

“Nothing has to be right at the first time. So, how are your algebraically closed fields?”

“… Admittedly not as good as my irrational numbers?”

“Then we’re working on that for this week. Then we can go over bounded operators and so on for the next one and then you can try it again. And if you have some ideas for a possible research project, you might start thinking about it.”

“All – all right,” Keith says, his voice going back to confident. “Sounds like a plan.”

Shiro doesn’t ask him why he sounded also like he hadn’t expected it. He can imagine it well indeed.

--

The next week, they’re in the middle of discussing the infamous bounded operators when Shiro gets a text – he forgot to put the phone on silent.

“Sorry, that’s the ringtone for Lance, what – oh.”

“What’s wrong?”

Shiro shrugs and hands Keith the phone. The text reads, it’s eight PM and you’ve been holed up there for four hours, and since we’re not assholes we left you both some dinner, you’re welcome.

“Oh. Shit. I hadn’t realized it was this late.”

“I haven’t either. I guess that at this point we should help ourselves to some food – I’m kind of starving.”

“… Me, too, now that I think about it. Shit, what –”

Keith grabs his phone, which is obviously vibrating. Then he glares at it. “Are they assuming they’re out babysitters or what,” he groans.

“Excuse me?”

Keith hands him the phone. We left you both some dinner – DON’T SKIP IT, Hunk’s text reads.

“Why the capslock?”

“Er, I fear living with me for a week made them realize I have a tendency to eat when I remember to, and he kind of texts me every other time to remind me to do it?”

“… I guess they are assuming they’re our babysitters?”

They look at each other and crack up at the same time – Shiro figures that maybe they do need the babysitters occasionally – and then he shuts down the book and pushes it to the side of the table.

“Maybe it’s more dignified if we actually go down and eat,” he says.

“Yeah. Right. Totally,” Keith replies, and they head down the stairs.

There are a couple of covered plates in the kitchen with a note next to them – it says you’re both hopeless. Shiro doesn’t even bother denying it as he sits down and hands Keith a fork. At least the chili is still hot.

“This is fucking weird,” Keith sighs as he sits down.

“What’s weird?”

“People actually texting me for this.” He shrugs. “It’s not like anyone’s ever bothered to.”

“If it consoles you, Lance’s done the same thing with me a few times. And my mom did that to me for five years after I moved out.”

“Five years?”

“Well, she even gave me a goddamn parrot to help me get through my recovery and I think I want it dead.”

“Wow,” Keith says, “looking at you no one would take you for such a drastic person.”

“That bird is a curse. It heard me when I was preparing the probability lessons and now he always parrots crap about percentages of things happening in one reality or the other, I can’t stand it.”

“Sounds… interesting,” Keith says. “Where the hell would he take the realities thing from?”

“Er, I was planning on using some examples from a couple scifi movies to drive the point home and then I decided not to, but I was talking to myself while deciding what to do. Teaches me to talk to myself.”

“Hey, it’s normal. I mean, I used to do it all the time. It kind of helps you concentrate.” Keith looks down at his plate and starts eating the chili, and Shiro follows, thinking, what happens after this and shit I hope it doesn’t get awkward, and meanwhile he thinks, what if I asked him to do something later, would it be inappropriate, wouldn’t it, and –

Shit. He’s way too over in his head. And maybe he should just stop and –

“Hey,” he says, “how early do you have to be at work tomorrow?”

“I have the mid-morning shift thankfully,” Keith replies. “And it doesn’t take too long from here. Why?”

Right. Here it goes.

“Uhm, I saw that you have a bunch of paperbacks up there and you said you haven’t bought new novels in a while, before. There’s a book sale going on some five minutes from here, should be mostly second-hand books – I saw it from the bus before while I was coming here.” He still can’t drive – shit, he can’t wait for when he can drive again. “Maybe you’d like to go?”

Keith’s fork stops midway in between the plate and his mouth. “I – wait, really?”

“Why not? I mean, it’s early. I can catch the bus later. Unless you’d rather call it a night –”

“No,” Keith interrupts him. “No, I – I mean, yes. Of course, I’d like to come. Second-hand also sounds good for my wallet.”

Shiro laughs and goes back to his chili. His stomach is not feeling as if he has just eaten a spoonful of lead now – hopefully it’s not going to change before the evening is over.

--

“Shit,” Keith says, “my finances will hate you.”

“That bad?”

Keith stares longingly at a couple of paperbacks – it’s their third stall – before taking one and dropping the other back in the bin labeled occasions.

“Well, I’m not cutting into the grocery money already because nothing costs more than two bucks, but this is the tenth. Still, I haven’t bought new books in two years, maybe I’m allowed.”

He pays for the Solaris paperback he had chosen and puts it in a bag along with the other nine.

“Do you like old school better?” Shiro asks, noticing that it’s all things written before the seventies.

“Kind of. I mean, I don’t go look for it specifically, but… lately most things seem to be the umpteenth Armageddon rehash, you know. Apocalypses, meteorites and so on. I kind of like it better when it’s about people exploring space even if then it might turn out to be not so great, if it makes any sense.”

“Hey, my friend Matt is currently taking a sabbatical in Paris enjoying a hell of a lot of philosophy conferences and he’s in that field because when we were fifteen he was obsessed with Asimov and the three laws of robotics and he wrote both his bachelor’s and master’s on comparing the ethics in Asimov to Kant’s ethics or something along those lines and now he spends his time sending me long-emails telling me I was an idiot to not pick the same field as he did because according to him I’d thrive writing about modal logic. Who am I to judge people on their taste in science fiction?”

“That’s – that’s cool, actually,” Keith replies, sounding a bit awed. “I imagine he wouldn’t let me read it, would he?”

“Why wouldn’t he? I don’t have it, but I’m sure his sister has a copy somewhere, I can ask her to bring it along next time I see her. Hell, he’d be glad, he keeps on complaining no one takes him seriously when it comes to what he did before applying for a PhD.”

“Oh. Well, I used to think about what kinds of math you’d use to make the robots work that way, back in the day. Which is probably kind of ridiculous, I guess –”

“It’s not. Heck, it’s the same principle as what kind of math you’d use to make computers work, which – well, it pays fairly well these days. I wouldn’t think too badly of it, if I were you.”

“Too bad my school didn’t have the fancy science teams. Never mind – I kind of wanted to be an astronaut, too,” Keith says, and Shiro has the distinct feeling that he’s never actually told this to anyone.

“Well,” Shiro says, “you wouldn’t have made a halfway bad one.”

“Maybe, but I doubt you get to the NASA through community college. Never mind that.”

“My damned bird would say that there’s some reality in which you had a way higher probability to become one.”

“Seems like a smarter bird than you give it credit for.”

“No, he’s that terrible.” Then he sees that the next for sale bin has on top of the stack the latest King novel that he totally forgot to buy because he was too busy being hospitalized. “Wait, let me get that.”

“Interesting,” Keith says. “So even the most serious math scholars enjoy mainstream horror?”

Shiro doesn’t even try to not blush. “Sometimes you might want easier reading if what you get through in most of your time is math theory. Not all of us want to relax hearing about Gödel’s logic. And hey, it’s mainstream but it’s not bad.”

“I’ll take your word,” Keith says, and then Shiro notices him eyeing something in the other section of the stand – it’s rare editions. As he pays for his book, he definitely notices Keith turning over in his hands what looks like a fairly well-kept but indeed second-hand copy of Cat’s Cradle, which – which is actually something he can see Keith really liking, but then he puts it back and starts looking at the bargains bin absentmindedly.

With his back turned to Shiro.

Shiro tells the seller to wait a moment and has a look at it himself. It’s some forty-five dollars, probably not so much for a 1965 print of a book published in ’63, but definitely more than the both of them have spent for all the rest of their purchases put together.

Still –

“I’ll take this too,” he says, and then throws another random cheap King paperback that he’s sure he doesn’t own on top of it just in case he gets asked what was his second purchase.

“I’m done,” he tells Keith after paying. “Now waiting for my appointments at the physiotherapist’s will be a lot less boring.”

“At least those things are long,” Keith agrees, and they move on to the next stand.

By the end of the tour, Keith has some fifteen books and is cursing himself and the fact that he just spent some thirty bucks out of budget, but he doesn’t sound too sad about it. Shiro has only gotten those three, and fuck knows what he’s going to do with the Vonnegut one, but – he’ll see, he supposes.

“I guess I should go wait for the bus,” he says after they’re out of the market. “See you the day after tomorrow, then?”

“Sure,” Keith says. “And thanks. I mean, I should go out more often, I know that, and – this was nice. Even if my wallet isn’t agreeing.”

“If you hadn’t bought new books for that long maybe it was overdue.”

“Maybe,” Keith agrees, smiling ever so slightly. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Shiro tells him before Keith turns the corner as he heads back home.

He goes for the bus stop in front of the park instead, and as he sits down after it arrives and turns Cat’s Cradle in between his fingers he thinks, and now what the hell do I even do with this?

He has no idea.

He supposes he will find out.

--

He doesn’t find out about that in the next seven days, but what he does find out is that Keith spend the weekend revising and making both Lance and Hunk start worrying because he’d only get out of his room to take a shower or grab dinner, and that when he arrives on Monday he’s welcomed with both the GED results and a neat notebook page with a pretty much flawless demonstration of the infamous spectral theorem.

“Is that how it’s supposed to work?” Keith asks as Shiro looks at it.

“It – it is,” he replies. “Can I keep it?”

“Sure. It’s not like I need it or anything. By the way, I passed.”

“I had no doubt about that,” Shiro says, because honestly, he didn’t, and Keith doesn’t try to downplay it, which – is a damn good thing as far as Shiro’s concerned. “So, ready to focus on the applications? Or do you want to celebrate?”

“Celebrate?”

“That you have the infamous GED.”

“Oh. That. I – I don’t know, who has ever celebrated for that kind of thing?”

“Anyone?”

Shiro had not expected Lance to comment from the stairs leading up to the attic.

“Sorry?” Keith asks.

“I was just coming up to ask if any of you wanted some tea, and then I heard that, and man, where do you even live? Of course people celebrate getting their precious pieces of paper, whichever pieces of paper we’re discussing. You know what, we’re getting the both of you later and we’re taking you out for drinks.”

“What, we?” Shiro asks.

“Hunk should better not leave me explaining the finer points of drinking to celebrate completing a level in the endless videogame that is getting your education to either of you. Or to Keith. Whatever. Don’t get too wrapped up in discussing numbers and worry about real life, too!”

Then he disappears downstairs and Keith keeps on looking baffled. “He wants to go out for drinks?”

“It’s normal. And didn’t you say you needed to get out more? Let’s just start checking those applications, they can deal with picking the bar.”

By the time they’ve narrowed down what things Keith should not apply for, there are three options left, good thing that the Garrison offers a whole great lot of programs.

“Right,” Shiro says, “thing is, you can apply for just one of them. There’s no way I can convince anyone to bend the rules for PhDs and the likes, and honestly, you’re way too ahead for a bachelor’s, so I’d go for the master’s. Thing is – one is the class I should teach next year and I have a feeling you’re more interested in… like, theoretical things and maybe how you apply math to computer science and that kind of thing, aren’t you?”

Keith coughs a little as he looks at what they printed before and reads the description of Shiro’s course, which is about an entirely different subject. “Kind of,” he says, which sounds like yes, exactly to Shiro, but never mind that.

“Right. That’s not really my field. Never mind that if you apply with me someone could try and imply that I might be playing favorites.”

“Isn’t that technically true?”

“No, I’m trying to give you a chance. And if I had to grade your test then people could start talking. Anyway, it’s not what you’re looking for. And honestly, you don’t want to apply with Iverson – if only his job was just at the workforce management office. But – the third. I mean, this is the class my boss is in charge of. And she really is good at that, never mind that she’s definitely more into that branch than I am. She’s – let’s say she’s not the easiest teacher to handle but she’s really good, and I think I can try to convince her to at least admit you. And it’s the only master’s that doesn’t require a research project ready.”

“You don’t have to –”

“We’re talking about giving you a chance, not about me telling you what you’ll get quizzed about before it happens. That said, you think you might want to give a few differential equations a try?”

“Why, because you have to bring her proof that I’m that good?”

“I can be convincing, but to make her bend the bureaucracy a bit, I need to have something to show her.”

Keith smirks. “Well, we have an hour before Lance drags us out. We can see, I guess.”

--

One hour later, Lance walks inside the room looking like he has lost all hope when they are concerned. “Of course neither of you is halfway ready – hey, what’s that?”

“You can check it before I do,” Shiro replies, not even bothering to hide his amusement when Lance realizes what he has in front of him.

“Have you just fucking solved the harmonic oscillator equation in the last two hours or so?” Lance asks.

“Fifty minutes,” Keith replies, sheepishly.

“Fifty – listen, you can cook somewhat decently, you can fix shit around the house and you can solve this in less than an hour, stop overachieving or I’m going to look like a failure here. And what’s it for?”

“… Impressing Allura,” Shiro replies.

“Impressing – oh. Oh. Shiro, please tell me when are you doing it because I totally want to be there to see it. With popcorn.”

“With popcorn?”

“Should be amusing. So, are you two coming or are you going to lose your mind over differential equations all the entire damned evening?”

Right.

Maybe that is a fairly bad idea, Shiro decides, and grabs his jacket instead.

--

He can’t even drink because that’d fuck with his pain meds, but admittedly, it’s a nice evening. They go to a place where the not alcoholic drinks are fairly good, so he figures the alcoholic ones must be, too. He calls Pidge, Matt’s sister, and asks her if she’d like to drop by and bring her brother’s theses and what not – she does, dumps both heavy tomes on Keith telling him that he can bring them home when he’s done, she’s so not dragging those two bricks around again, and then she spends half of the evening talking to Hunk about engineering – she’s also into it, just on her first year – and the other half about engineering and the three laws of robotics to both Keith and Hunk, which makes for a fairly good entertainment since they are very heated when it comes to the subject.

“Shiro,” Lance tells him while they’re discussing something extremely interesting about the second law, “honestly, tell him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, and you’re staring in their general direction like it’s the most interesting conversation in existence when I know for sure that your tastes in literature that’s not scientific are a lot more basic than that.”

“Lance, it’s just really not a good idea –”

“Listen, you have until Allura accepts to let him take the test as a plausible excuse, and then you’re just material for the worst rom-com in existence. At least he has the excuse that he has no idea how to handle people giving a shit about what he does, you don’t.”

“Since when did you get a degree in relationship counseling?”

“See? You just admitted you wanted it to be a relationship,” Lance replies, sounding so smug it should not be even legal.

Shiro hopes that he’s exaggerating and that he’s not that pathetic, never mind that he still thinks that doing it now would be all kinds of inappropriate.

He drinks more of his delicious not-alcoholic fruit cocktail and thinks about all the ways he can spin the entire issue to Allura when he goes to see her the day after tomorrow, because at this point now that they decided to apply to her program, it shouldn’t take too long to put the application itself together and he has a feeling Keith wants to do it as soon as possible.

--

Indeed, they manage to go through the entire thing on the next day – it only lacks two letters of reference.

“I can write one,” Shiro says as Keith’s face falls while reading it’s definitely a requirement.

“And where would you get the second, Lance? Because I don’t think he has the qualifications yet.”

“No,” Shiro replies, “that’s a fair point, but – wait. Is that both of Matt’s theses on your nightstand?”

“Oh. Yeah. I, uh, might have read the both of them last night?”

“… Didn’t you have work today?”

“It was worth it,” Keith replies, fairly sheepishly.

Shiro can’t help it – he grins, and Keith suddenly looks worried. “What are you smiling about?”

Shiro checks his wristwatch. “It should be late morning in Paris. I’m sure Matt would love to talk to you.”

“Wait a moment, you aren’t saying –”

“Just let me call him,” Shiro says, and grabs his phone – good thing he has a very good plan and he doesn’t pay extra for international calls, but with half of his family being in Japan it was the most convenient option.

“Hey, Matt?”

“Shiro, what the hell?”

“Why, did I wake you up?”

“It’s – ah. Okay. Ten thirty AM. Fine, I might’ve gone to bed somewhat late.”

“I see you’re enjoying your sabbatical more than I’m enjoying my forced rest. Anyway, I was wondering, can I ask you a favor?”

He can see Keith frantically shaking his head, but he ignores it, explains Matt the situation and then hands Keith the phone. “Do tell him how did you like his master’s,” Shiro says, and Keith sends him a look which says I would quite like to end you after this embarrassing as fuck moment is over, except that then he does tell Matt something related to the aforementioned thesis and by the time Keith hands him back the phone, it’s been some forty minutes and Shiro hasn’t even followed most of the conversation, but it was fairly heated – in the good way.

“Shiro,” Matt tells him, “please send me an e-mail with everything I need to know to write that letter and you can have it in two hours.”

“Excellent,” Shiro replies, “we’ll let you know how it works out.”

“If it doesn’t, I’m calling Allura myself. No one who starts a conversation with I don’t really know anything about philosophy but I understood the categorical imperative thanks to Asimov should be denied a scholarship,” Matt says cheerfully. “Especially because it means that when I come back someone smart would come to my class about modal logic.”

“Wait, he told you he would?”

“I insisted that he should, it looks like his kind of poison. And now let me go have my damned breakfast. I’m expecting that email by the time I’m back.”

“You’ll get it. Thank you, you’re a lifesaver.”

“Hey, it’s always a pleasure. Now sorry, but I’m smelling caffeine.” He closes the call and Shiro’s still grinning as he puts the phone away.

“So,” he says, “still convinced it was a bad idea?”

“But he doesn’t even know me,” Keith says, sounding completely baffled.

“People get asked for favors like that all the time, it’s normal. And he heard you enough to know I wasn’t asking him to write a reference letter for someone who didn’t deserve it. Come on, send him the rest of the application, then we can wait until he replies and you can send that for good.”

“Shit. Okay. Wow, am I really doing this?”

“You are. And there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.”

Keith gives him a small shrug and he sits back down at his laptop forwarding everything to Matt’s email address, and Shiro can see that his fingertips are slightly shaking as they press on the keys.

--

“Allura? Can I have a word?”

“How interesting,” Allura tells Shiro as he walks inside her office, “I was just about to call you for what I assume is the same matter.”

“Oh. So, are you reviewing the applications for your master’s class next year?”

“I am,” she says, her fingers tapping over a folder that Shiro would bet money contains Keith’s application, “and I was wondering, why would you write a reference letter for someone without academic qualifications, why would Matt do it and most of all, why is that someone applying for that program when they have a GED only? Admittedly, it’s with the highest grade, but with these premises, it’s quite a waste of time for anyone involved.”

Right. He had gone as far as envisioning this specific part of the conversation.

“He’s one of my students from Altea,” Shiro tells her.

“Right, so he should have some certifications from there, as well – oh, here they are. Fine, but it still doesn’t answer any of my questions.”

“I told him to go for it.”

“You told him.”

“Listen, before you murder me for wasting everyone’s time, just hear me out a moment.” He grabs another, way thicker folder from his bag with his right arm – small victories, right? – and slides it over to Allura. “That folder has copies of all the tests I handed out while teaching that class – his own, of course. Then it has copies of most of the exercises he solved while I was giving him some private lessons off the book.”

“You did what?”

“Nothing against the law, Allura, and you know it. And then at the end there are a few… demonstrations he’s gotten through in the last month. By the way, before you look at that, I can assure you there was no cheating going on and that I didn’t do anything other than steering the ship when it was necessary. If you need someone else’s word –”

“It’s fine, I know you. You wouldn’t sponsor anyone who cheated, Shiro, don’t even go there. Fine. Let’s see these tests,” she sighs, and her eyes land on the very first one Shiro handed out.

“What,” she blurts. “This isn’t high-school level.”

“He did that in ten minutes. They had one hour to finish.”

“Excuse me?”

“I might have shown that to another old student of mine just to make sure I wasn’t making it up. He confirmed I couldn’t have been. But do go ahead.”

Allura moves to the second, then the third, then –

“Wait,” she asks, “did you start giving him more difficult tests sometime in April or whar?”

Shiro shrugs. “It was obvious he wasn’t too comfortable with being done that much before anyone else, not that they cared. And at that point he was writing in my place at the blackboard so in theory he already knew all of that.”

“Fine, I see the point of giving the man private lessons, I guess.” She shrugs and goes on, and Shiro’s known her long enough that he can see that she’s impressed when she’s midway through the folder, even if her face wouldn’t give anything out to the casual observer.

She goes ahead, and ahead, and then she reaches last month’s demonstrations.

“Shiro. Are you seriously telling me that he’s solved the damned Spectral Theorem correcting something in between twice just with you giving him private lessons?”

“Look at the page underneath. I asked him to try and demonstrate it just when we started, and the first page is the first attempt. The second is just after and it was what, the next week? Or two weeks later. Anyway, the only input I gave him was… further theory explanation in between, I didn’t tell him how he should solve the thing.”

Allura nods and confronts the two demonstrations and at that her eyes go so wide it’d almost be comical. Almost.

“He – he realized where he was going wrong in less than two weeks with little input from you?”

“Yeah,” Shiro replies. “And as far as Matt’s concerned, let’s just say they have a few interests in common, so I got them to talk and Matt insisted to write that letter without me needing to sponsor it that much further.”

Allura goes back to look at the differential equations.

“I just – technically this really shouldn’t fly,” she sighs. “But – you said this guy was studying to get a GED?”

“Yeah.”

“And – what does he do in life? I mean, at twenty-three I guess he has a job?”

“Er, yeah. He, uh, he’s a janitor here.”

“Here.”

“Yeah. And Iverson hates his guts, but never mind that.”

“You’re saying this guy can manage to prove the goddamned spectral theorem with what, five months’ worth of someone explaining him what people learn in the bachelor’s curricula plus something beyond it and he’s earning below minimum wage cleaning classrooms and getting bullied by half of the staff and half of the students?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“What the fuck,” she says, and Shiro doesn’t think he’s ever heard her swear that openly.

“Yeah, what the fuck. Listen, I wouldn’t have gone for it if I didn’t think he could do well, but – he’s into your same field, he’s good at it, he learns scary fast and honestly, the main reason I didn’t tell him to apply for the bachelor’s is that he’s already ahead.”

“Except that it’d have been way easier to accept him for that. For – Shiro, damn you, do you know if he’s on shift today?”

“He’s always on shift. I don’t know if he has the morning one, though.”

“Okay. Go to Iverson’s, find out if he is and if it’s the case send him over here. I want to talk to him in person before I make any decision on this.”

“Sure. I’ll be right back.”

“Of course you will. Jesus. The fucking spectral theorem.”

Shiro leaves her office while she looks through his folder again and heads to the workforce management office, though he kind of hopes he doesn’t need to get as far as –

“How many times I’ve told you that this machine does not accept more than fifty cents at once?”

“Calm the fuck down, you know you’re paid for this?”

Okay, he definitely doesn’t need to go to Iverson’s. Keith’s indeed there, still explaining how the coffee machine works, and two out of five people around it are from the same group from earlier this year.

“And you’re paying for what, not even knowing what up until means?”

Shiro clears his throat. For one moment, he considers doing this low-key, then he decides that sometimes being petty can’t hurt too much.

“Mr. Kogane?”

“Uh, sir? Can I help you?”

“Not me, but the head of department would like to see you.”

“… Wait, to see me? When?”

“Ten minutes ago, given how she told me to go ask Iverson if you were on shift. I’m sure people can survive without you manning the coffee machine for the next twenty minutes – I trust you know where her office is?”

“Yeah. Sure. I – I’ll be off then?”

“Please, feel free to.”

Keith sends him a panicked look that says aren’t you coming. Shiro shakes his head – he knows Allura wouldn’t want him in. “I’ll join you both in a minute.”

He watches Keith go and smirks as he feeds fifty cents to the coffee machine and it starts handing him his coffee without being any trouble at all.

“Er,” one of the students asks, “why would the head of department want to see him?”

Shiro grabs his cup and takes a small sip.

“I think it’s to discuss his application for next year’s master’s class. Have a nice day,” he says, and leaves as he drinks his coffee and all five of them look as if he just told them that the apocalypse is nigh.

He’s kind of sad he couldn’t take pictures, but never mind –

His cellphone vibrates in his pocket. He grabs it and checks the notifications – he has a WhatsApp message from Lance with… a video of the entire exchange?

What, Shiro texts him.

I was behind the corner. You’re welcome.

… Well, now that’s better than pictures, is it?

--

He waits outside Allura’s office for a good twenty minutes.

Then Keith comes out of it looking paler than usual and with the face of someone who’s just ran two marathons, never mind that his uniform is obviously soaked in cold sweat, but he doesn’t look sad or disappointed. Just – shocked?

“How did it go?” Shiro asks.

“Uh. She – let’s just said I’ve seen third-degree interrogations carried out by CIA agents in movies that weren’t half as intense. Anyway, after it was over she said she was going to admit me to the entrance test except with, like, harder questions or something because if I passed it she’d have to jump I don’t know how many bureaucratic hoops to make it work so I should make it worth her time, and I said of course it was acceptable, and then she was all smiles and good luck in a month then?”

“Right, she was in a good mood then.”

“Jesus. I need some damned coffee myself or I’ll faint for real.”

“Do go ahead, I think no one’s around that particular machine right now.”

“What, you scared them off?”

“Maybe. Anyway, I should probably go unless we want to risk running into Iverson who’s most probably going to assume something fishy’s going on.”

“Yeah, good point. I’ll – I’ll see you at the same time next week then?”

“Sure. Don’t worry, the regular entry tests are stuff you could do with your eyes closed.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Hopefully you will soon, Shiro thinks as he watches him head for the coffee machine.

--

“You told them I was taking the entry test?!”

“Has Lance shown you the video or what?”

Ninety-nine percent probability, Slav croaks from behind Shiro.

Damn it.

That bird is too smart for Shiro’s goddamned liking.

“He has,” Keith says, “and what was that?”

“The demon parrot,” Shiro groans. “Anyway, I told them. I mean, I hope it wasn’t overstepping boundaries, but –”

“Never mind, their faces were worth it. And is your parrot still going on about probabilities?”

“Apparently? I hate it.”

“He sounds cute.”

“He’s not,” Shiro declares. “Anyway, did you get the official acceptance e-mail?”

“Yeah. Shit, I’m just – I don’t even –”

A moment later, someone puts the phone on speaker.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing with –”

“He’s freaking out over nothing,” Lance says. “Hunk, back me up here!”

“Of course he’s freaking out over nothing, I showed him the copy of my master’s test and he could have passed it even if it’s not his subject.”

“Guys, she already said it won’t be the same as –”

Keith never finishes the sentence because everyone hears Slav croaking one hundred percent probabilities even if Shiro never put his phone on speaker.

“See, even the bird knows. Shiro, you should re-evaluate it,” Lance says cheerfully.

“In his dreams. Anyway, he could be right for once.”

“Can I have my damn phone back? Thank you. I knew I should’ve called you from the attic.”

“They mean well, I guess. Except about the bird.”

“I’m sure he can’t be that terrible, especially since he’s so sure I’m passing that test.”

Shiro laughs – fine, that was a point. “Did you get the dates already?”

“Yeah. Today’s July 31st, it’s… on August 20th, and then the results should be available by the end of the month. And if you’re accepted it starts a month later – hopefully if I get in they will also accept my scholarship application or I’m going to have to ask for loans for the next twenty years.”

“Allura’s in that committee, too, don’t despair. By the way, the hellspawn with wings behind me is insisting that you have an eighty-two-point five percent chance for… I don’t know what, but you do.”

“Man, if he’s right about that, too, I kind of want to buy him some bird food or something. What’s the name even?”

“Slav, it came with the cage.”

“You’re so mean to the poor thing.”

“You haven’t lived with it. Anyway, tell you what, if he’s actually right I’ll be nicer to him, how about it?”

“Please, I’m feeling sorry for the poor thing on principle.”

Shiro is not, but he kind of hopes the birdspawn of Hell right. They agree on a schedule for some further revising while something crashes in the background – he has a feeling Lance broke some plates – and sits back down on the sofa with his arm throbbing in pain. Maybe his therapist having told him to use it more wasn’t an authorization to spend the entire last week using it to hold the phone, writing down anything he needed to write down and generally trying to feel like a normal person all over again.

Shit. Well, he’ll just dial it back a notch, he figures.

Too bad that when he was just out of the hospital he’d have thought he’d do anything to change things and not crash, and now he’s thinking that he wouldn’t change the last six months or so for nothing.

--

On the morning of August 31st, he’s woken up by his phone ringing at – eight AM? What the hell, it’s a Sunday.

“Yeah?” He asks, perfectly aware that he doesn’t sound entirely coherent.

“Shiro? You awake?”

“Hunk? Well, now I am. Why?”

“Get dressed and be presentable in ten minutes.”

“Wait, what, why?”

“Because Lance is driving our tenant to your place to stage an intervention. Well, you should stage it.”

“I should what?”

“Get dressed and don’t let me keep you!”

Then Hunk closes the call in his face and Shiro’s just – really out of his fucking depth here, but it’s not as if he’s going to go back to sleep with these premises. He gets out of bed, dresses as fast as he can manage and he has even brewed coffee by the time the doorbell rings rather loudly, as if whoever’s outside is really putting some strength in pushing it.

He opens it.

Lance is indeed outside, with Keith standing next to him sending him a stare that says if you weren’t renting me an apartment I’d end you right now – meanwhile Lance is paying him absolutely no mind.

“Oh, hi,” Lance tells him. “So, did Hunk warn you?”

“I just know I have to do an intervention according to him?”

“Ah, right. So, he got the email with the test results this morning and has been staring at it and its lovely attachment for one hour without opening it, which both of us found frankly ridiculous –”

“I was going to open –”

“Yeah, maybe a week from now. Whatever. So, since he’s obviously freaking out over that shit, we figured that maybe if you were in charge of things here, he’d be somewhat more reasonable about it. And now I should go since it’s my last vacation day – have fun!”

“Don’t you want some coffee?” Shiro asks without putting too much effort in it – probably a right call, since Lance pretty much runs back to his car and drives away entirely too fast for the span of maybe ten seconds it took him to reach it and doesn’t hear him at all.

Well then.

“Do you want some coffee?” Shiro asks Keith.

“Please,” Keith says, “no one told me meaningful interpersonal relationships were supposed to be this embarrassing.”

“Meaningful interpersonal relationships?”

“You’d be surprised of the group home psychologist slang you end up absorbing after eighteen years hearing it.”

“Too bad,” Shiro says, choosing to not comment on the implications, “they’re supposed to be embarrassing half of the time, I fear.”

Keith groans and walks into the house as Shiro moves out of his way.

“The kitchen’s this way,” Shiro tells him, showing him the hallway.

“Wow,” Keith says as he walks, “how neat are you?”

“Usually? Not much, but if you have one arm partially out of commission you tend to not let stuff clutter the place.”

Slav croaks something from the living room. Shiro chooses to not even paying attention to it.

“Is that –”

“The parrot, yes. Don’t worry, I’m going to introduce you in a moment since my computer is in the living room, but let’s just drink the coffee before it gets cold.”

Keith doesn’t absolutely rush him to, which only gives more credit to Lance’s theory that he’s postponing looking at his test results. Shiro doesn’t point it out and hands him one of the three cups he had ready.

“What do we do with the third?”

“You can have it. Wait, are you finished already?” It’s been what, a minute? And it was burning hot.

“What can I say, after you drink a lot of that you don’t feel the heat anymore. Thanks.”

“Congratulations, you’re the first person I meet who actually embodies the I drink it black and bitter and hot as hell stereotype. How is your throat not completely burned inside out?”

Keith laughs as he downs half of the cup in one go. “Told you, pure talent.”

“At least you’re willing to recognize that kind of.”

“Shit, this is about the e-mail, isn’t it? Never mind. I deserve it.”

“Come on, just look at it. In the worst case, you didn’t pass and you can go on with your life, but I’m sure it’s not the case.”

“You are.”

One hundred per cent probability, Slav croaks from the other room.

“Him, too, I guess,” Shiro sighs. “Come on, bring that cup with.”

Keith does, and Shiro notices that he’s just wearing skinny black jeans, a white t-shirt and the usual red jacket he always has on – has Lance even waited for him to finish putting on his shoes before staging the intervention?

Never mind that.

He heads for the living room instead.

“Here we are,” he says. “I’ll go turn on the computer. And that is the hellspawn with wings.”

“Hellspawn? Really? Come on, he’s cute,” Keith says, going straight for Slav’s birdcage rather than following him.

“He’s surely not.”

Shiro turns on the computer and Slav parrots back, he’s cute.

Christ.

As if he was not aware of that, when it comes to Keith. Definitely not when it comes to the damned bird.

“Come on, he is.”

“Try living with him half a year. Anyway, please, do sit down.”

“… I really have to do it, don’t I?”

“You know you have a week to accept or refuse it if you got in, so… I’m afraid you have to.”

Keith shakes his head and sits down in front of Shiro’s desktop – he types his email username and password in the provider, and a moment later the lone, unread email is staring at the both of them from the screen.

“Well, shit. Here it goes,” Keith says, clicking on it. Shiro can see that his fingers are slightly trembling. And then –

“Of course it’s in the attachment,” Keith groans. True enough – the email only reads something like dear candidate, you will find the results of your test in the attached PDF and then something about confidentiality and so on. “Fine. Here it goes.”

He clicks on it twice, and the Adobe logo appears in the middle of the screen.

“Shit,” he says as it loads, “how ridiculous am I being?”

“Maybe some, but all things considered, cut yourself some slack.”

“It’s just – I don’t think I realized that there’s an actual chance I could get in until now – now that is goddamned ridiculous. Actually – can you look at it?”

“… What, before you?”

“Listen, I wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t ended up in your class and just – if it’s bad news at least you’ll tell me nicely.”

And he’s looking at Shiro, not at the screen, and Shiro can see that the document is loaded by now.

Thing is – he should say no, but he gets where the request comes from, and he can only imagine how it might feel to read the equivalent of college applications acceptance years after what the system assumes is the right age, never mind being told that you’re not college application material in the first place for most of your life.

“Sure. Just, uh, move over a bit.”

“Oh. Yeah, right.”

Keith moves back the seat and Shiro moves in front of the screen. He scrolls down a bit past the Garrison’s logo and all the usual talk that goes before they actually tell you the result.

He finally gets there. Then scrolls a bit further down, and then up again.

“I think you should look at it yourself.”

“Wait. I should? So – it’s not bad?”

Shiro thinks, should I?

Then decides that he’ll be forgiven if he does it. “Not entirely,” he smirks.

“What’s with the cryptic replies?” Keith groans. “Okay, fine, let’s see. Shit, not entirely, guess I’ll have to ask for loans then – oh.”

Shiro is kind of trying not to laugh, but okay, Keith’s utterly baffled face at seeing the actual result was worth that little lie.

“How is this not entirely bad?”

“It’s not, but I didn’t want to deprive you of that elated feeling you get when you find out for yourself,” he says as Keith stares at the document telling him that he got in and that after a very thorough review of his application and situation, they agreed on paying all of his expenses except for housing, which is of course not a problem since he wouldn’t need to live on campus.

“You – you know you can be an ass when you want to?”

“I’m entirely aware of that. Ah, shit, now I have to be nicer to the hellspawn with wings, don’t I?”

“Given that he got it entirely right, maybe you should,” Keith says, and moves his seat away. “Fuck. Fuck, I just – I think I need a moment. Or not. I don’t – I don’t know what I need.”

“Maybe some wine?”

“Please,” Keith says, and Shiro goes to grab a bottle he had in the fridge which is already open, but he only had a little last night, so there should be more than enough. He considers doing two trips, then thinks screw it and takes two glasses with his right hand, hoping that it won’t come back to bite him later.

“There you go,” he says, putting them both on the desk. Keith’s still staring at the screen with the face of someone who’s sure he’s having hallucinations and for some kind of miracle Slave isn’t talking.

“Thanks,” Keith says, unclenching his fists from his jeans. He pours Shiro a glass with still slightly shaking hands and then pours himself one, but doesn’t drink it at once – his hand is shaking too hard.

“Hey,” Shiro says, “you think you might want to send a copy of that to your middle school teacher or what?”

“Hell,” Keith says, “I just fucking might. Also, I’ll probably swear loudly for the next half hour or something.”

“If it means Slav over there starts swearing rather than reciting percentages I’d sign for it.”

Keith takes a sip of wine, then a larger gulp. “Well, fuck. I just – please tell me there’s some chance I’ll end up in the same class as those three assholes from the coffee machine.”

Shiro almost spits his own wine. Almost. “They’re sophomores, so not yet. That said, if you play your cards right, you might be in charge of a few extra classes they should attend.”

He’s not too surprised when Keith drinks the rest of the wine in one sip – he has a feeling he hasn’t thought about that option. “It’s probably too early for another glass, is it?”

“I think you earned it.”

“… Fuck that, I might have.”

By the time Keith’s filled the second glass Shiro’s not even halfway through his own, never mind that neither of them has had breakfast yet, probably – he hasn’t, so he shouldn’t drink too much – and then he realizes belatedly that Keith’s actually never been here and he hasn’t even played host anywhere near properly, never mind that he’s wearing fairly unfashionable old things he only puts on when he knows no one will drop by –

“Meanwhile I’m just – that chair’s not really where I let guests sit, you know.”

“The – oh. Oh. Shit, Lance just invited himself here along with me, I’m so fucking sorry –”

“Who said I have a problem with you being here?” He takes a drink, against his best intentions. “I mean, I haven’t – I haven’t proposed to just revise here because if anyone found out it’d have really harmed your chances of getting into any program and I didn’t want anyone to assume anything, but that’s it. And Lance invites himself all the time, as if it’s any news.”

“Oh. Oh, okay, that’s good to – wait. If anyone found out – I think I got it, but – you mean –”

Right. Shiro really should have not drank anything. But since he’s done it, he might as well go through with the rest of the conversation.

“Let’s just say that if you bring students or, well, potential students to your place and anyone knows, the first conclusion they jump to is that it’s inappropriate. And the second is that it’s inappropriate and it will turn into favoritism. And the likes.”

Keith finishes the glass and puts it away on the table. He’s looking… focused. Very focused, Shiro thinks, and he’d really like to know what he’s thinking now, he would –

“But – it’s not the case now, is it?”

Shiro shakes his head. “You haven’t been my student since the classes at Altea were over. I wrote you a recommendation letter after teaching you, and that was the extent of my involvement with your application as far as people can technically know. I mean, I helped you revise, but since I was still on sick leave and I’ll be until tomorrow, I guess, I wasn’t part of any committee revising those applications and I couldn’t know what was in them. Also, if you passed a harder test and Allura got the board to pay your expenses – which is not that easy, so she really must have been impressed – then it was all you.”

“Okay. Fair. I imagine I won’t be this year, either, will I?”

“No. You’re in her class, not mine. It’s an entire other branch of the department and it’s not my subject, and I do bachelor’s classes for half of the year anyway. Why, you’re going to miss my lessons?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you were an active part of most of them and it was nothing you didn’t already know?”

“Right, true, but – I’m still allowed to miss the feeling,” Keith shrugs. “I mean, it was the first time anyone made me like going to class rather than feeling like it was a chore.”

“Too bad most people in my Garrison classes don’t agree.”

“They fucking loss,” Keith mutters, low enough that Shiro almost thinks he misheard, and then –

He doesn’t know how he doesn’t start hyperventilating the moment Keith’s fingers touch his wrist.

He can’t remember if they ever touched with this intent behind it, mostly because right now his brain is drawing a complete blank, but he doesn’t move his hand away.

He’d be a complete idiot, especially since he’s been pining for this long, wouldn’t he?

“Still,” Keith says, “I know this is totally preposterous and maybe I’m being a hell of a lot more inappropriate than anyone would assume, but – does that mean I can stop pretending I don’t really know you when – on the premises?”

“Sure,” Shiro replies, feeling like his throat has just gone completely dry. Maybe he should get some more wine. Except that he can’t even move now, never mind drink anything. “You’re in another program entirely and it’s normal – I mean, I’ve had lunch with Lance while I was his master’s thesis advisor and he still was a student technically. It’s not inappropriate. Nor preposterous. I, er, I just – this,” he says, gesturing in between the both of them with his free hand, “wasn’t a business transaction. You think I’d have done it for someone I didn’t even like?”

“What if that someone had… talent?”

Shiro is keenly aware that Keith’s hand has not moved.

“I’d have referred them to someone else and maybe given them a hand at first, but – I mean, obviously, I’d have done something, but not – this. Of course I don’t want you to pretend that you don’t know me, or anything.”

“… Why did you put it like that?” Keith groans.

“Er, sorry? How?”

“That you don’t want me to pretend – ah, shit, fuck it to hell and back,” Keith says, and then he stands up – no, wait, he puts a knee on the chair and lift himself upwards until they’re at eye level, and then –

Shiro would really like to assume that Keith’s mouth briefly touching his has not been a wine-induced hallucination.

Then he remembers that he’s had maybe a quarter of a glass, and possibly not even that, so he can’t have hallucinated it lest his tolerance really has somehow become that shitty, and it’s – really not.

“I wasn’t pretending anything just now,” Keith says a moment later, leaning back. “And – I know it probably looks fishy and I know what’s the conclusion anyone might jump to, and I – I swear it has mostly nothing to do with the last four months and all to do with the fact that I’ve been wanting to do it since way before Altea –”

“… Way before?”

“I’ve worked at the Garrison for a damned long while,” Keith says, “I happen to have eyes. Then you happened to be the one person who’s ever given a fuck about what was beyond my tests or about – pretty much anything else, which turned to be damn ridiculous because let me tell you, it’s not really advisable to want to do that in our previous situation. Then it turns out that even if someone tries to find some kind of flaw with you, you always manage to prove them wrong, which makes it entirely more frustrating, and just – feel free to tell me to fuck off because I know how this entire deal sounds, but –”

“Why didn’t I have a clue?” Shiro interrupts, even if admittedly he did have plenty of clues – he just never chose to listen when others told him his feelings might not have been one sided.

Keith shrugs. “My social worker used to say you could never guess what was going on with me.”

Too bad, Shiro thinks, that if you look at his eyes you can see that it’s really, really not the case.

“Or maybe,” Shiro says, “maybe I was kind of an idiot.”

“You? I doubt it.”

“No, I was. I mean, I didn’t have a clue, but I also refused to consider it when others pointed it out that I wasn’t pining too hopelessly.”

“Wait, pining?”

“Keith, not to steal your thunder, but I also work at the Garrison and I happen to have eyes, too.”

He moves closer and closes the gap between them, not too strongly, not too harshly, but not as tentative as Keith had been before – he slots their mouth together, gasping when he feels the fingers from Keith’s left hand tangle with the ones from his right, and somehow interlacing them with Keith’s doesn’t make them hurt at all.

For a moment, it’s all so absurdly working out that he doesn’t even know what to make of it – Keith’s lips are soft against his and he’s kissing him back without hesitating, their hands are joined, he’s so close Shiro can feel his heart beating at a slightly higher speed than what sounds regular, never mind that his own feels like it’s jackhammering in his chest, and fine, their breath probably reeks of wine but he could think of worse things –

And then he hears his chair kind of cracking and all of a sudden Keith’s all over him, grabbing at his good arm before they both crash to the ground, and he has to move back lest it actually happens and – yeah. The chair’s kind of broken. Then again, it was old.

“Oh my –” Keith starts, “I haven’t really – I have, shit.”

“Maybe the third time is going to be the one that works out? And don’t mind it, it was old. At least we didn’t actually fall or it’d have been way less dignified.”

“We’re never telling anyone that happened though, aren’t we?”

“Hell, no,” Shiro laughs, and opts to sit down on the sofa instead. He makes a motion for Keith to follow and he does, sort of gingerly, as if he’s not really sure of where he should put his hands or legs or anything, “I’m buying a new one before anyone else can notice.”

“Good. I just – I thought it’d hold. And – wait, did you say third time?”

“Seems to me like the first two could use some improvement.”

“They can,” Keith says at once, and then he has a hand tentatively on Shiro’s arm and he’s dragging his legs upwards on the couch. “I just – I kind of can’t believe we’re at attempt three.”

“How so?”

Keith stares at him, his teeth worrying his bottom lip, but then he lets it be and breathes in, and – “Do you think I ever considered getting as far as attempt one?”

“I hadn’t either,” Shiro admits, and he knows it sounds kind of self-deprecating, but he hopes it doesn’t show.

Given how Keith narrows his eyes after he says it, he has a feeling it did.

“Wait,” Keith says, “was that just because it’d have been… inappropriate?”

“… Not just that.” At this point they might get it out in the open, he figures.

“Okay, and what else was the problem?”

He shrugs – good luck to him in saying it out loud when Keith’s that close to him and it looks like fairly dumb reasoning at this specific point.

“That – that right now I wouldn’t call myself the most appealing prospect?”

“Because of this?”

Suddenly Keith moves and he has his legs around Shiro’s, his hand touching Shiro’s right arm without pushing or anything – he’s obviously not sure of whether he can or if he’d make things worse, but he has the eyes of someone who’s thinking if that’s the problem you’re an idiot.

“Sort of,” he admits. “And – I know it’s stupid, but I just – I figured, you might want to look in your age range for –”

“Shiro?”

“Yes?”

“While I get that reasoning, I think there are a couple of things you should know.”

“… Okay?”

“First, if there’s one thing I sort of always loathed, was people in my age range. I don’t think I ever managed to get along with anyone in my age range until my current landlords and your friend’s sister. Which is – in the endless list of issues on my file back in the day. So, that’s dumb, because I really don’t care. Second, that was unfortunate,” he says, nodding towards Shiro’s right arm, “that was very unfortunate, but it’s – an arm, not your brain. I’d assume that what makes people appealing prospects to me is their personality first. And as far as that is concerned, I think you have nothing to worry about. At most it should be the contrary.”

The contrary?

Shiro’s left hand moves without his immediate consent and he feels Keith sighing the moment it touches his face.

“The contrary, how?”

Keith snorts. “I don’t know, my file had a very long list of… what they called signs of antisocial behavior typed early into it. I don’t really think I have a winning personality or anything.”

“Given where you’ve just landed yourself, I beg to disagree. And if people don’t bother to talk to someone else first good luck not turning antisocial, or whatever the hell it was. By the way, as long as you don’t twist it, you can touch that arm. I mean, I shouldn’t do anything too abrupt with it, but it’s fine.”

“Good to know,” Keith says, his fingers finding Shiro’s, and –

He’s really glad to find out that at least this still feels the same way it used to when he held hands with his last girlfriend, too long ago, but it really doesn’t matter right now.

He grips back, and then Keith leans down tentatively –

Right.

The third attempt is definitely better than the first two put together, and the fourth is better than the third –

And then he loses count, and for the first time in his life it’s not bad news at all.

Chapter Text

Epilogue

The morning of October 23rd, Keith’s alarm sounds louder than usual.

It’s probably his head playing tricks on him.

That, or Lance’s terrible tequila from last night. Why the hell did he accept it? There’s no way surviving a month and a half of master’s deemed drinking half of that bottle in between the two of them. Allura is going to have his hide later, if he can’t pretend that he’s actually sober.

He drags himself out of bed, gets downstairs to the kitchen and drink three full glasses of water, then makes himself enough coffee to wake up a dead man, then takes notice of what’s on the table.

Don’t skip breakfast again, and come to the bakery after you’re done with class. Happy birthday!

Oh.

Right.

He had completely forgotten, but then again he hasn’t celebrated it or anything since he turned eighteen and no one ever bothered to remind him of it, so he hasn’t even considered what damned day it was.

Maybe that was why Lance wanted to go for drinks yesterday?

Also, behind the note there’s a stack of pancakes with blueberries, which – right. He used to make breakfast before the semester started, and now he doesn’t have time anymore, which usually turns into eating something fairly shitty in the Garrison’s cafeteria, which he really should stop doing.

He texts a quick thank you to Hunk and tells him he’ll be at the bakery, then texts Lance what the hell was that tequila for I hate you, and then he sits down and drinks half of his coffee before moving on to the pancakes. By the third one, Lance replies to him you can’t appreciate someone starting celebrations early, can you?

Keith groans and shoves the rest of the food into his mouth – he’ll reply to him in person. Later. A lot later.

By the time he has finished his food and his coffee he feels more like a proper human being and not like one that’s been run over by two trucks. He puts on the cleanest clothes he has – shit, he needs to do laundry, living with other people who somehow find him things to do has made him lose a lot of his habits that came with living alone in a shitty apartment for years, first of which, since you have a lot of free time you might as well use it to clean.

Anyway, he can do that tomorrow, he still has some clean shit in his wardrobe. He throws on his jacket, checks that he has his notes with – good thing Allura’s not testing them or asking them to do demonstrations until next week, if he sits in the last row maybe she won’t notice he wishes he could go back to sleep for one entire full week.

Right. He’s somehow still in time. He catches the bus, arrives at the Garrison twenty minutes before his class is supposed to start as usual and figures he’ll just go and return some of the books he borrowed a couple days ago from the library.

He smirks as he notices that one of the guys who kept on feeding the one dollar coins to the coffee machine are at the check-in area – he figures they’re working off some of their tuition. He smiles very sweetly as he hands back two seriously heavy tomes, and smirks all the way through as he signs the return form. The guy is honestly livid as he finishes the whole transaction, but he can’t say anything now, can he?

Admittedly, it’s a bit petty, Keith knows, but damn if it’s not satisfying. He resolutely keeps on smiling as he tells the other guy to have a lovely day and heads for his class. His head is still pounding, but not as much as before.

Good – at least by the time it’s over no one is going to guess he’s in dire need of an aspirin or two.

He gets through class. Allura doesn’t notice he’s in dire need of aspirin, which is a fairly good thing. He even manages to throw in a few observations or so, and patience if a few of the people sitting next to him obviously whisper things about him needing to show off every damned time – he worked his ass off to get here, he’s going to damn well show off. It took him months to make peace with the fact that he was allowed to especially in this context, like hell he’s going to stop because a bunch of kids a couple years younger than he is think he’s being an asshole.

It wouldn’t be the first time it happens, anyway.

At lunchtime, he’s managed to avoid actually talking to anyone in his class – too bad that he doesn’t manage to avoid Lance waiting for him just outside the door.

“I hate you,” Keith tells him without bothering with niceties. “You could have left me some damned aspirin at least.”

“Not my fault if you can’t handle tequila as much as you can handle Allura’s exercise drills. Anyway, I’ve got a couple things for you.”

“What?”

Lance rummages through his pockets and slams a tube of aspirin in his Keith’s hand and then a small envelope. “From the boss. God, you’re ridiculous.”

“… How so?”

“The moment I said from the boss, you went from murder machine to sappiest chick flick fanboy in existence. You two would give the worst romcom a run for its money.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. See you later and you’re welcome!”

He’s gone a moment later – Keith is just going to ignore his ridiculous assumptions (he’s not someone out of any romcom, thanks). He finds a bathroom, swallows the aspirin along with some water and then opens the note.

He’s really glad no one’s around to see him because he has a feeling he does look like some kind of romcom protagonist right now regardless of what he likes to think – he can feel how hard he’s grinning, but anyone would if they were reading a card with an equation whose result is obviously their age. Christ, if you’d told him a year ago he’d end up receiving this kind of birthday cards from the actual person he had been pining after for a hell of a long time he’d have laughed, but –

He smiles again and pockets the note – he knows why Shiro sent it with Lance, he had a faculty staff meeting in the morning and a doctor’s check up visit around lunchtime.

Which means that his room should be empty and locked. Damn it.

He has another class before he can head out to the bakery, and Shiro’s done with the meeting before Keith’s done with the class, so they’ll probably meet there. Shit, he’s going to have to lose his face to do what he thinks he wants to, but –

But who cares, honestly. Just the prospect that he can actually think about it is making him feel giddy, and patience if it’s ridiculous and you outgrow this kinda shit at fourteen – it’s not as if he ever had the chance to get through it at fourteen.

He grabs one of his notebooks, takes a piece of paper out, grabs his pen, scribbles down on it – thank you, and then he adds,

(x^2+y^2-1)^3-x^2y^3=0

and heads for the cafeteria. He only buys a sandwich – he’ll eat it on the way to class, he’s late already – and then walks over to Lance’s table.

“Give Shiro this when he comes back, will you?”

“Am I your mailman now or what? And what is – seriously?”

“Tell anyone else I did it and you’re dead.”

“Wait until Shiro hangs it up on the wall, you don’t need me to tell anyone else. You’re a fucking sap, though.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re worse than he is. You deserve each other. I’m so embarrassed for the both of you.”

“So you say. Have fun grading tests.”

“God, I so hope this will be your life at some point, then you’ll gloat.”

Maybe, Keith thinks, but for the next couple of years it definitely won’t be, and he really doubts Allura would want him for a TA, so he thinks he’s pretty safe for now.

He goes to class thinking that he’s really enjoying his birthday so far.

--

He slams his notebook closed as he heads out of the door – right. Five thirty PM. Perfectly on time. If he manages to catch the next bus he’ll be at Hunk’s before six – he’s ready to get into a short run, but then he stops because –

Shiro’s right outside the classroom’s door.

“Hey,” he says, and Keith tries to not grin like the aforementioned romcom lead character, if anything because they aren’t hiding that they know each other, they don’t exactly flaunt around that they’re together. Or at least not in front of this many other people.

“Hey. Shouldn’t the faculty meeting –”

“Oh, it ended on time, but I figured I’d wait instead of going on my lonesome since Lance ditched me.”

“He ditched you?”

“He left earlier saying he was done grading and he wasn’t too interested in being our third wheel. That said, he wasn’t too wrong about that note.”

“Mine?”

“He said it was the dorkiest thing on the planet.”

“And what’s your opinion?”

“My opinion is that I sent my mother a picture and I’m afraid she called me and said she was so glad I was obviously settling down she couldn’t even put it into words.”

“Wait, you sent her a picture of the equation or –”

“I solved it, who do you take me for? This is what I sent her.”

Shiro hands him his note as they head for the exit. Yeah. He solved it. Perfectly.

Which is why there’s a carefully drawn heart on the plane.

“Well, seems to me like you solved it correctly.”

“Did you come up with it on the spot?”

“I might have. Why?”

“Because it’s hot in ways I’m not sure I can describe, but then again I studied math, not poetry.”

“Don’t worry, no one expects poetry out of you. I might be expecting equations out of you, though.”

“I can arrange that,” Shiro says softly, and they aren’t out of the door yet and Keith’s sure someone is definitely watching them, but Shiro doesn’t seem to care, so he doesn’t try to put distance in between them, not that he wants to.

“By the way,” he says, “I’m cleared for driving.”

“Wait, since when?”

“Since today’s visit. Fine, I’d need a car to do it, and I don’t know if I want to invest money in a new one, but – I just, at least it’s as healed as it gets.”

“That’s – that’s great,” Keith says, and means it, because they might have been together for a couple of months but they’ve known each other for longer and he knows exactly how much Shiro hated not being as healed as it gets.

(Even if he told Keith once that he didn’t regret what happened because of that accident, and it’s been weeks but Keith’s still not sure he’s processing it.

The concept of someone not regretting almost losing a limb because it was what made them actually talk to each other is still completely alien, as far as he’s concerned.)

He kind of wants to reach out and grab Shiro’s hand, which is also another thing he hadn’t thought he’d ever get as far as being comfortable with, but he doesn’t, they’re in public and –

“You can go for whatever you were thinking the moment we’re at the bus stop,” Shiro says then, and Keith almost trips into the stairs just outside the Garrison’s front entrance.

“What?”

“You just stopped yourself from doing something. I think I know what it was. You can go ahead.”

“I – I don’t know, I mean, it wouldn’t be exactly friendly –”

“Point taken, but have you seen anyone other than the two of us actually taking the bus to go somewhere?”

… Fair point, Keith thinks. A lot of the students just stay on campus, most of the teachers use a car and most people who rent an apartment find one within walking distance.

So maybe he feels kind of ridiculous as he threads his fingers with Shiro’s while they wait for the bus to arrive, and maybe he kind of want to say something horribly corny about how a year ago he hadn’t even contemplated going father than finding an office job with his hard-earned piece of paper, but then –

“Oh, before I forget and before neither Lance or Hunk – or Pidge, hell no – see it –”

“What shouldn’t they see?”

“The last item on the list of things that would give them further blackmail material when it comes to the two of us.”

“I think it’s endless by now.”

“Still, the less the better. Here.”

Shiro hands him a small red bag, which contains a fairly badly wrapped gift.

“Er,” Shiro says, “I didn’t want to ask them to wrap it. And I can drive but I have a feeling coordinating motion when it comes to wrapping things isn’t a thing that’s happening anytime soon.”

“It’s fine,” Keith says, “and you didn’t have to get me anything.”

“… Actually,” Shiro says, “I technically didn’t get it now. Just open it.”

Keith shrugs and does and –

Oh.

Oh.

It’s that copy of Cat’s Cradle he hadn’t even considered buying at that second-hand books sale where they went this summer, because forty bucks for an admittedly well-kept old hardback were completely out of his budget.

Even if he was tempted for a moment.

Mostly, because he thinks it was the first book he ever read – it was in one of the bookshelves of the first group home he remembers living at, and he had liked the cover, and in retrospective it really wasn’t age appropriate, but he had liked it even if he hadn’t understood it, and then he re-read it a couple of years later without understanding much either, and then he had found it in another library again after other, more age-appropriate science fiction and he had absolutely loved the fact that it was about a damned apocalypse but was also fun. And the edition he’s holding right now was the same one he read when he was twelve and which he then quoted back at one of his insufferable math teachers – she hadn’t taken too well being told that anyone who can’t explain to an eight-year old what they’re doing is a charlatan, not that it eventually changed her opinion of him either way.

Anyway, he never owned a copy, and he never bothered to buy one when he moved out, and when he saw the exact same edition he had briefly considered wasting his hard-earned money on that for once, and then he didn’t because it really would have been a waste.

And –

“Wait, you bought it then?”

“Spur of the moment. I didn’t even know why I did it except that – you looked like you really wanted it. I figured it could be a birthday present at worse and some kind of congratulations present if you got in, but then it went the way it did and it really didn’t seem like the right time for it. Any reason why you really wanted it?”

Keith wants to cry. “It was my favorite when I was in high school. Long story. Shit, you didn’t have to.”

“True, but that’s not the point. Anyway, see why I didn’t want them to know?”

“Hell, I do. Let’s just pretend it was a new thing, shall we?”

“Please, yes,” Shiro laughs, and Keith just – he doesn’t even know what to say because he was always utter shit at putting things into coherent sentences, which is also why he always liked numbers better, but –

“You know,” he says, “there was – a line. In that book. Which you wouldn’t think you’d find in a satire about nuclear apocalypse, but – it said – something.”

“As in?”

“That there’s love enough in the world for everyone if people just look, or something like that. I kind of used to think it was an exaggeration.”

“You used to?”

“Maybe I don’t anymore,” he replies, soft enough that no one else around them might hear them but Shiro does, and –

They miss the bus because they’re kind of maybe too busy making a few of the old ladies at the bus stop blush and look the other way (but another couple then tell them that it was so nice to see young people in love and Keith kind of wants to die inside, good thing one of them is good at interacting with little old ladies even if it’s not him), which is in itself fairly embarrassing, and he knows they’ll be late which means they’ll have to explain why and they’ll never hear the end of it –

Honestly, though? He’s completely, absolutely fine with it and maybe he hadn’t thought this’d be his life a year ago, but he’s glad he decided to try and get his life straightened out instead of making ends meet with whatever job he could find from which he would inevitably fire himself because he’s never managed to play nice with people assuming that if you’re working a low wage job then you don’t have a right to basic respect. He’s glad that he signed up for those classes even if they seemed like a waste of time. He’s glad he figured, maybe I can stop being paranoid around one of the few people who hasn’t assumed that since I went around fixing the coffee machine I was there to be their maid.

Maybe it’s true, that there’s enough love in the world if you just look.

And right now, as far as he’s concerned, it’s – it’s definitely true, not just maybe, and maybe he’ll tell Shiro later.

But not just now, and patience if not telling him means that they lose the next bus, too, and he ends up being late to his own surprise birthday party that he had absolutely guessed was the reason why he was told to go to the bakery and where he pretends to be surprised anyway.

As far as what he had in his plans last year, what he has right now wildly surpasses it, and he wouldn’t change it for the world.

(Admittedly, Shiro’s frankly scary but not so terrible bird has informed the both of them a few times that the two of them are bound to be together somehow in every possible reality, and there’s a reason Keith actually likes the poor thing.

He likes that idea, and not just because it has kept him awake trying to actually quantify it and put it into real numbers on real paper – he’s failed for now, but it’s an intellectual exercise anyway, it’s not urgent that he actually pulls it off.

He likes it very, very much indeed.)

End.