Work Text:
It wasn’t her decision but she had to be there, wasting the time she could be using to do something more important. Something that could change the world, or at least her life. However, she wasn’t the only one suffering that kind of change in high school because the rules had changed and now every student had to be better at the subjects and abilities they are the worst at.
Everything was a huge disaster.
No one had free time in their schedules for hobbies during high school, except if you were part of a team. Now, if you weren’t good at math and you really wanted to be the best at football, you had to be the best at math first. And if you wanted to be the best at math, you had to be the best at football. You had to prove that you actually were able to be as intelligent as a nerd and as athletic as an athlete, but still taking classes.
Pidge sighed again while she was getting dressed in her own swimsuit, a big green t-shirt and her best long shorts. Why swimming classes? Well, every ball always hits her face, she is too short for basketball and running is too boring. She likes water and, usually, the pools are too deep for her.
She really wanted to learn how to swim without a life jacket or pretending to enjoy more with just her feet in the water. So, maybe this could be great… or a nightmare.
She didn’t know anything about swimming… anything! That’s why she was in the beginner’s class at the same time that the university’s team had their practice; they had to share the pool. It was big enough to give enough space for every class, especially since the beginners class was with just one student, her.
Once she was out of the dressing room, she noticed something different about the girls. They acted too excited and most of them were using make up, for swimming! Nothing made sense. They asked each other if they looked good, adorable or sexy. Pidge just looked at them weird, wondering why they acted like that when the answer arrived. They started to make some noises that alerted everybody that someone had come.
“Hey, do I look great?” a girl whispered by her side, with a shy smile watching at the man that took off his t-shirt.
“Why do y’all care about it?”
The girl looked at Pidge for the first time, noticing her swimsuit. “You are the beginner, right? And maybe you’ve never been here before.” Pidge adjusted her glasses to paid attention to the guy who was surrounded by girls trying to touch him or to be noticed. The girl laughed a little. “He is the best couch you can found in the swimming pool, you really didn’t know anything about it? Even the boys admire him!”
“Well, you know, some girls have more than hot air in their heads”.
The girl didn’t know how to answer to that, and Pidge really didn’t care. So, she walked to the pool to sit on the edge and feel the water while her couch arrived. Suddenly she felt a warm big hand on her shoulder.
“Hi, I’m Shiro; I’ll be your couch”, he said with a kind smile.
Some girls whined, others looked at Pidge whit envy, others looked a little mad. They were expecting him to train them, because there was just three teachers in that area: Shiro, Allura and Coran.
“Ok girls! Go and swim!” the team tried to look excited with Coran in his swimsuit that looked more like a pajama, watching Shiro alone with that lucky beginner.
Pidge couldn’t even imagine how that was going to be for her.
0-0-0-0
It was her decision to take that class; it was her decision to wear her perfect kind of swimsuit. But now, she felt…weird in a way she couldn’t explain at all. It was impossible for her to be calm every time Shiro arrived for her class. She hadn’t noticed the moment she started to feel that way about her teacher.
Every time he looks at her.
For two months, she saw him every Tuesday and Friday, sometimes walking by on her way to the classroom. His nice smile, his voice so calm, his support and most of all, the obvious thing, his touch and nearness. She felt different, comfortable, even when sometimes she shouts so high when she can’t float by relaxing her body, but then, he’s catching her.
She knew that Shiro was already outside, but she wasn’t going to be able to go out just like that when her mind was in the middle of an emotional war. She is an intellectual girl that cares more about numbers, logic, inventions, and whatnot. So, the worst part wasn’t her feelings, but she was a bit nervous about her clothes. Maybe if she tried…
Come on! Why did she care? She has never cared about clothes or being more girly, Why would it make any sense if she tried to use a “normal” swimsuit?
“There you are!” Allura walked into the dressing room, with her biggest smile. “Shiro is waiting for you”
“Yeah, I’m on my way”
“Miss Katie, is something bothering you?”
Here they go again. Allura was training the team most of the time, and when Pidge realized that something was happening within her about Shiro, Allura started to talk to her, asking her about it again and again. Sometimes, her friend would say some weird things to Katie that made her think even more about… her feelings?
“You already know you can talk to me”.
“Lance is bothering me; he’s always begging me to do his test” Allura smiles as if she was playing but Pidge looked at her without emotion on her face because she wanted to be at ease with Shiro.
“Yeah, but I mean to something more important. You know, that important thing that every girl notices easier than boys”
“And that is…?”
“Love”
Pidge’s mouth almost fell to the floor. That was the weirdest talk ever with Allura. And she wouldn’t drop it.
“Hypothetically, if I were in love, why would I talk to you?”
“Because you don’t have any female friends, I have experience with boys, and most importantly, I know Shiro better than you”
“My couch? You serious? He’s older than me”
“By ten years, who cares?”
0-0-0-0
That morning was amazing, a perfect weather and the most beautiful sky. She had breakfast with her brother and then went to her bedroom to put on her favorite clothes, big and comfortable, to resist all day at the library.
When she was ready, she got her backpack and crossed her room as usual but she stopped in front of the door because of her reflection. The big mirror called her to pay attention for a moment: Big shorts, big sweater, messy hair and no make-up… well, a relaxed outfit, no too girly. But she didn’t care, did she? However, it was the first time in her life that she used that mirror to look at herself in that condition.
Pidge started to think about Shiro.
Pidge started to think about all the things that Allura said almost every day.
“Katie! Let’s go!”
“Go first Matt, I have something to do.” She answered at the same time that she closed her door.
Shiro was that kind of guy that made girls act more like a girl. There was Pidge, changing her clothes for a white dress and trying to control her crazy hair. Ten minutes later, having just left her house, she wasn’t really ready to see herself again. She likes dresses but she doesn’t feel like her own person wearing them.
That’s why she refused to use make up.
The long way to get to high school didn’t last enough. The moment she saw more students, Pidge felt like she was the center of the universe and everybody was making comments about her new style, but surely, most of them didn’t know her at all. It was just her stupid imagination.
“What a beautiful girl!” there was Allura; if no one have noticed her, Allura was there to do that. “I told you, dresses are the best! They do magic!”
“Yeah, well, I have class... see you” Pidge answered like it wasn’t the big deal, and feeling stressed to be out there where someone could be arriving too.
“Pidge?” His voice at her side stopped her. Shiro saw her before she could run “Wow, you look…great”
She turned to face him and just in time to see how he scratched his scruff and Allura knocked his head, rised an eyebrow and went away with a hussy smile. Pidge crossed her arms at her chest so glad to make that decision minutes ago. Maybe every word that Allura told her was true.
“Thanks, but it’s not the big deal that Allura believes.”
“But you look really beautiful, Pidge.”
Her cheeks went red in a second; even more when she answered.
“Katie…you can call me Katie”
0-0-0-0
“Allura, enough… ok? Maybe this is too much” Pidge couldn’t take off her towel; she was hanging to it like her life depended on it.
“Come on! Just look at my swimsuit… it’s a bikini! I’m showing more, a lot more than you!” Pidge felt her legs as jelly, wearing a dress was one thing but a swimsuit, a normal swimsuit was totally different and something that she had never done before, even when she was a little girl! “Let’s go Pidge, Shiro is waiting…again.”
“You just called me Pidge.”
“Of course, I want Shiro to be the only one using your nice name”.
Allura stood up of her sit and left remanding her to hurry. She didn’t know what Allura was thinking. She didn’t know that it was her last try inside her mind, because she was her friend the same as Shiro, and as her friend, she wanted to see them together.
If destiny existed, Pidge and Shiro were born to be together, no matter what.
Pidge exhaled and inhaled a few times while she was walking out. Her legs were all naked, and most of her back too; totally out of her comfort zone, but if it was for Shiro, she will do it, just once, or twice, everything depends of how he reacted.
She listened to Allura giving the team instructions as she started to see where she was, at the other side of the pool with Shiro next to her. Pidge inhaled one more time, slowly and deeply, just to through off her towel. Her feet were a little dump with every step she took. When Allura pointed at her talking to Shiro, her nerves got even worst. Her cheeks went red in a second.
It was like time stopped as Pidge crossed her arms.
Shiro swore he couldn’t breathe. Pidge was always the kind of girl that made you see what really mattered, the inside, personality, feelings, all that made people special. So, if he already felt different with her, seeing her in that way made him lost his focus.
“That means you are in love with your student” Keith told him after a few months when he had started with her as his only beginner student.
“Come on Keith, it’s impossible”
“I’d never lie about something like your feelings, you always talk about her with a huge smile and your eyes shine with a particular light” Shiro saw his friend’s face, so serious that he couldn’t interrupt. Keith was really persuasive, and as his best friend, it was a little obvious that he could affirm what he couldn’t realize so easily. “And most of all, you have never told me anything about how she looks like, the biggest proof of your feelings”
And he was totally right, because that moment was the first time he really payed attention to her physical appearance. He almost suffered a heart attack. She was perfect. The girl that owned his heart.
The girl that made him feel anxious to start their class, that made him think about her incredible focus when she was in her computer. Yes, Shiro had looked for her to see her from the distance.
Pidge was that girl that his friend knew as well as he, or at least, all that he knew, because he couldn’t stop talking about her.
She was the girl in his life that made him feel different, that made him feel his heart.
Shiro walked a little fast to face his student, realizing for the first time the big difference between their heights. Realizing for the first time, too, his real feelings, what he wanted so desperately. Pidge looked at him redder than a few minutes before, and Shiro smiled even more. Pidge looked adorable like that.
“You look…amazing, Pidge”
She opened her eyes surprised, forgetting everything about the situation. She thought he would call her Katie and Shiro noticed that.
“I like Katie, but I fell in love with you in your comfort zone” Now was her turn to feel a heart attack. The whole team stopped their moves, staring at the situation because Allura was too excited to see and hear anything else that she almost felt the excitement of the moment she was waiting for.
“Pidge or Katie, I don’t care, you are the same”
Pidge relaxed her muscles and suddenly, she felt stupid about all the things she had done to win Shiro’s heart when all she had to do was be herself. Now, nothing mattered. She hugged him in front of everybody and he did the same.
Allura celebrated the moment and motived the team to celebrate it with her. Claps, shouts and a lot of noise couldn’t made them brake their special moment.
“But, between us, I really loved your white dress.” Shiro whispered at Pidge when they broke their hug to hold hands.
“I knew it; your open mouth while I was walking told me that.”
Then, Shiro kissed her head.