Chapter Text
There was a loud BANG toward the back of the classroom causing the students and professor to turn and look at a now dazed Keith cradling his head wile ridge tried not to laugh, unsuccessfully. “Mr. Kogan do you need to step out and take a nap.” After rubbing his face in his hands and looking around to remind of his surroundings, Mrs. Peterson's class ‘SPANISH 314 Spanish Language in Media and Politics’. “No mam” he pauses finding his voice ”Sorry”. It wasn’t that the class was boring, it was quite the opposite actually. It was just that he had a 7 hour shift at work yesterday then had rehearsal until ten right after. So his 8am classes were not looking extremely appealing at the moment.
The older woman turned to her computer and pulled up a PDF with EXCHANGE STUDENTS in bold on the front. “Now I hope everyone is paying attention for this next part as it is a vital part of your final grade.” She went on and Keith had to slap himself a bit to stop from falling asleep again.
Two hours later he was laying on shiro’s couch and complaining to his friend who was in the kitchen making the two dinner. “I absolutely can not believe this, I mean it's insane” he closed his eyes and sighed. “I mean SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT OF OUR FINAL, I swear I’m going to kill this bitch.” Shiro stuck his head out into the living room of the small apartment and gave Keith his ‘look’. “It's not that outrageous to expect your students to interact with someone who can only speak the language that the other is learning. Plus think of it this way, it's good experience for dealing with people who need an interpreter in America. That is what you want do right?” He gave Keith another ‘look’ before Turning back to the kitchen. “Yes I do” Keith grumbled “BUT SHIRO I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH PEOPLE.” you could almost hear the disappointment from the other room. “Keith, your job is literally going to be TALKING TO people” shiro responded “did you never think of that” the ever responsible one. “Yes” Keith let out with a sort of growl, “But I never planned on living with them for a month, or having them grade me on my performance”. shiro just walked over to him and rolled his eyes, “just eat your damn spaghetti” he said as he handed him a bowl. “Got any..” Keith was interrupted by the container of parmesan being handed over. “Look on the bright side, you may even make a friend out of this”. Keith just glared at him while sprinkingling the parmesan all over his warm food.
——
It was two weeks later and he was back in his 8am class about to revive who he would be stuck with for the month of September. The exchange students were all coming from Spanish speaking countries who are majoring or minoring in English but have no or only an entry level knowledge. The idea was to pair with Altea University’s foreign language depart Two weeks later he was still a bit salty about the entire thing. Two weeks later shiro pidge and hunk were all over the complaining. They were all at their favorite table in the corner of the cafe on campus sipping their favorite drinks with textbooks and computers and papers splayed all across. Of course he one class they all had was the one class no one knew anything about. Biology 101 “why is this even a required class, it’s a damn arts school”. Pidge mumbled from behind there computer. “Because there dick heads” Keith responded. Hunk hummed in agreement then look up and exclaimed “oh shiro thank god you're here, can you explain the concept from chapter 3”. Shiro was there TA and saving grace, “sure which one” he said smiling and sitting down. “Uhhh all of them....” hunk said with a chuckle.
2 hours later and they all felt semi confident on the subject and sort of ready for the exam tomorrow, shiro had left abruptly about 45 minutes ago with little explanation and they had slowly just defended into talking.
“Keith don’t you have to go to the information lecture about the exchange student program.”
Keith sighed loudly. “I’m not doing it”. Pidge looked over with curiosity “I thought your teacher was making it mandatory”
“No she is making it 75% of or final” was Keith response. “sounds mandatory to me” hunk chimed in.
“no I’m just going to fail the class” pidge set down the pastry they had been chewing on and told him to “get off your ass and get over there” from the other side of the table. Keith just shook his head and lifted his now cold latte that he had gotten in one of the glass cups you had to drink at the cafe (no flavoring like a heathen). “Gotta finish my drink” pidge looked in and noticed that he had only drunk about 1/4 of it. Bastard had planned this didn’t he. Then they promptly reached over and grabbed the cup out of his grasp and before he could react, and poured the rest into trash can near the bathrooms.
“PIDGE I WASN'T DONE WITH THAT” Keith yelled grabbing the now empty cup. “You are now” they said moving there chair back under the table. “Now get your ass up and go to the informational meeting”. Keith grabbed his stuff and angrily shoved it all in his bag. “Leave the textbook please, we need it” shiro asked. “No” Keith respond while walking out trying to ignore the giggles from behind his back.
His friends wanted him to be miserable didn’t they.
Once the door had closed shiro said to no one in particular “god I hope this doesn’t go horribly wrong”.
It probably would.
____
The information meeting was kid of useless, it just went over what Mrs. Peterson had already said. You will be assigned one exchange student who has had one year or less of the language you are currently taking and they will live and follow you to classes for a month. They had taken a personality survey a little while ago so that they could be best mashed with someone. Keith just hoped who ever he got would just be someone chill and quiet who didn’t want to talk to much, and he definitely didn’t want to be stuck with some asshole with shit taste in music. He really just didn’t want to be here.
One of the teachers walked up to the podium with a stack of packets in his hand, Keith could see little yellow sticky notes on each one with fine handwriting listing names from his spot in the second row. “When I call your name come get your packet, these are the exchange students who will be staying with you and any information you should know about them. Once you have your you may leave” He rattled off a few names, clearly in alphabetical order so Keith zoned out until they got to “Harry, Helen, Iggy, James, Keith, Kira” Keith slid out of his chair with a sigh and walked down to the front and grabbed the packet that was about 7 pages thick, with lots of small writing, great. His walking slowed down a bit as he approached his seat and glanced over the first page just briefly.
Name: Lance McLane
Gender: Male
Age:21
Nationality: Cuban
Major: acrobatics and marine biology
English proficiency level: one year of HS English
‘Marine Bio, hum, maybe i'm not dealing with a complete idiot’ Keith thought as he shoved the packet into his bag, most definitely 100% planning on looking at it more latter, for sure. But is was 2:47 and he had to get to the studio, it was open gym for those going to competition and he wanted to work on his solo routine and possibly get some advice from Allura on his routine, regionals were only in a few weeks after all.
—
After a short train ride he was in the studio, he opens the door phone in his hand picking out some tunes only bothering to look up when he heard no friendly greetings. It was rather empty for a Saturday evening. It was actually concerning-ly empty, there wasn’t even anyone out front. As he poked his head into the studio he saw allure and… was that shiro? OH MY GOD NO. They seemed to be dancing but the wrong KIND of dancing. He made a muffled scream/gasp and quickly tried backpedaling down the hall. He heard a quick “shit” from shiro. Before he could just book it out and never return shiro caught up to him in the hall.
“Hey man, sorry you had toes that allure said she didn’t have anything going on today at the studio” Keith slowly turned around to see shiro with his hand scratching the back of his neck clad in a pair of inside out sweat paint with a pair of black boxes sticking out the top. keith just pressed his lips and nodded slightly, “well… I wasn’t under that impression, it was supposed to be VIP open gym day” he refused to look at shirts beet red face so just started to find intrust in the very boring photo on the wall of an assortment of over saturated fruits.
It's not that the conversation of sex was something awkward or weird for them, they get up together and shiro had even bought Keith his first condoms, gave him the ‘talk’. Now that they were older they would often having long conversation of there strange ‘sexcapades’ as shiro had called them once, and only once, over half drunk bottles of cheap beer. He also knew he had a sort of thing going with allura, the manager of her father's dance studio Altea. But Keith had never actually seen him the act, especially when he was just wanting to try out the new piece he had choreographed in a larger space then his small room, also straight sex was fucking weird. He would never understand it.
Thankfully allura soon ran out after re-dressing to save them. Her hair was messed up, her lips were a bit puffy, and her shirt was inside out and backwards. Keith wanted to die. “Keith what are you doing here” she asked approaching the two. “I… I thought we had a semi-open gym today”. Keith studded out at her, hopping very much to just LEAVE. “Did you not get the text I sent out?”
“Evidently not” he sighed. “Look I’m sorry for interrupting you guys can just go back to your.. thing” he grabbed his bag off of the floor and just turned around to storm out the building. “AND DON'T FORGET TO LOCK THE DAMN DOOR” he yelled to them behind his back.
Shame was an emotion he avoided a lot, and therefore didn’t know how to deal with it well, and whenever her encountered an emotion or situation he didn’t know the ‘protocol’ for he just went to his default, anger. Was it a good coping mechanism, no. should he probably deal with that, yes. Was he going to? Fuck no.
As he unlocked the door to his small apartment he fell onto his bed, what the fuck was he going to do for the rest of the day now? It was his day off, his brain had been studied out, and practice was… out. He looked over at his backpack and the thick packet of papers…. Maybe he should give this a shot.