Archive of Our Own ^beta

Stepping into the backyard of his humble home, Keith starts on his usual morning routine. He's already completed the necessities after rolling out of bed to shower and get dressed, but now he's strolling into the yard while pulling on a light jacket to battle the lingering early morning chill. This little garden in his backyard has been one of Keith's points of pride and joy the last few years, and now it's finally in a state where he can simply look through it in the morning before heading to work and see what looks ripe and fresh for plucking to be included on the day's menu. There are a couple of tomatoes that appear ready for finally picking, so Keith crouches down to twist them gently off their plants and set them into the bag he brought out with him.

After a few minutes of evaluating if there's anything else to take other than some herbs, Keith goes back into the house to pack up the tomatoes to take with him. He grabs the English muffin he slipped into the toaster before going outside and quickly butters it so he can munch on it while scrolling through his phone, leaning against the counter next to the bar stools rather than actually sitting on them. Nothing of note pops up other than Lance's usual nonsense chatter and some photos from his dad's restaurant that make Keith smile to himself.

Dusting the crumbs off his shirt, Keith heads out to his bike and finally hits the road. There's a more direct route to the commissary, he knows, but Keith always chooses to take the slightly more scenic route that drives him through parts of Garrison that he doesn't get to spend as much time in anymore. At a red light, Keith turns to look through the visor of his helmet at the building that's had a FOR SALE sign on it for a year now. He doesn't get a chance to contemplate it long before the light changes and he must speed off. 

Pulling into the commissary, Keith parks his bike in its usual spot right next to his food truck. For the past three years now, Keith has started his day in mostly the same way: tending to his backyard garden before speeding off on his bike to the commissary where he does the prep for his food truck. He always parks in the same spot next to his truck that looks more or less the same as the day he had brought it here for the first time after its fresh design and paint job. 

After pulling off his helmet, Keith looks over at the truck and runs a hand along the side. He'd taken it for a wash yesterday afternoon and it was still mostly spotless and shining. The bold letters in black declaring KEITH'S on the side of the truck surrounded by the red, black, and white designs he'd worked with the artist to come up with still managed to gleam a little in the early morning light. This was his main pride and joy, a food truck that was all his.

Keith gets to work in the commissary prepping all the ingredients he'll need for breakfast and lunch. When Keith had decided to start a food truck, he knew that breakfast foods were where his heart laid, and he developed a menu that would be perfect to sell out of a food truck for the first two meals of the day. He loved the idea of people in the city of Garrison sleepily waking up and grabbing one of the bacon and brie sandwiches from him or walking up to the truck during their lunch break to still scratch that itch of some classic egg, cheese, and sausage on a bagel in the middle of the day. Specializing in breakfast sandwiches just made sense to Keith, and the truck has been thriving since. 

He's one of the only breakfast trucks that works out of this commissary, so it's fairly empty while he preps, allowing Keith to get lost in the tasks of slicing his fresh tomatoes and dicing up herbs to mix into the truck's specialty sauce. It's not until he's usually wrapping up to leave that more of the other chefs start to trickle in, and Keith waves at them while he walks out the door with the last ingredients to load up. 

With everything loaded into the truck, Keith takes a deep breath and does his daily inspection to make sure everything looks and works as it should. He then lets out another breath, thankful that the truck remains in tiptop shape. Keith spends hours on the maintenance of the truck himself, only ever going to the mechanic when something really goes beyond him, but he's proud of how he can say he fully works and dedicates himself to the food truck—it has his name on it, after all.

Eventually, Keith hits the road and weaves through bleary morning traffic to make it to his regular parking spot. It's at a corner that houses multiple small businesses and some larger office buildings, so he always gets a nice mixture of customers from around the area. It's also a place that gets a decent amount of foot traffic as others pass through, and the smells from his truck can be mighty tempting to make people stop at 7:30 am and decide, yes, they want some breakfast. 

"Good morning!" Keith hears the greeting before he sees who said it, but he already knows the owner of the voice. 

"Hi, Lance," Keith sighs as one of his best friends and usual first customer of the day waltzes over to lean against the truck and stand on his toes to look through the open serving window at him. Lance has always been supportive of Keith's truck and also annoyingly tends to be the first customer of the day before going to work at the hair salon across the street. 

"Ugh, Lance is here before me?" Pidge, Keith's second-in-command, complains as she walks up to the truck rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"It's a beautiful morning, Pidge," Lance narrows his eyes at her. "I couldn't help but head out a little early today."

"That's great, Lance," Keith deadpans. "Your usual?" 

"Yes, but, I also have some news this morning," Lance bounces a little on his toes. Keith thinks he looks like an excited puppy.

"Did Allura finally agree to a date?" Pidge asks, eyebrows raised.

Lance sputters. "N-no, not yet! I haven't asked," he frowns. Pidge and Keith have been waiting for months now for when Lance finally braves his fears and asks out the owner of the outdoors and sporting goods store that opened next door to the salon on a date. 

"Oh," Keith shakes his head in dismay. "I was really rooting for you lately, too."

"No need to be so rude," Lance scoffs. "And here I was with good news for you!"

"What good news for me?" Keith asks wearily. 

"There's a food truck contest being held in Garrison," the bounce returns to Lance now that Keith and Pidge aren't ridiculing him. 

"Not interested," Keith dismisses Lance with a handwave. His other hand flips over some turkey bacon on the grill for Lance's sandwich. 

"You didn't let me say anything about it!" Lance yells with indignation. 

"Oh my god, will you shut up and be quiet if I let you tell me about the contest that I have absolutely no interest in?" Keith's voice grates with annoyance. 

"Yes, thank you," Lance resumes a normal volume. "Well, first off, like I said, it's a special contest being held in Garrison because the food truck scene here has been so hot. Second, guess who's hosting it?" Lance doesn't even wait for Keith or Pidge to answer before pressing on himself. "Honerva!" 

Keith's hand holding the knife he was about to use to spread some sauce onto a thick slice of toast stops midair. "Honerva, the Honerva?" Keith's mouth drops open in shock.

"Is there another famous chef named Honerva? Of course, it's her!" Lance rolls his eyes. 

Honerva happens to be one of the most well-known chefs not only in the city of Garrison but in the country in general. She has stacks of cookbooks and a fleet of restaurants across the country along with cooking specials and a television show. Keith's parents had known her since his dad and Honerva went to culinary school together. She's been someone that Keith has admired for a while and getting the chance to maybe have her try his food is honestly a little tempting for Keith.

"Okay, so Honerva is hosting it, that makes sense, she's from Garrison," Keith tries to shrug it off and finish assembling Lance's sandwich.

"That's not all," Lance wags his eyebrows up and down. "There's also a prize for the winner. A $100,000 prize." Pidge lets out a low whistle while Keith mutters shit under his breath. "Not bad, huh?" Lance adds.

"There's a lot you can do with that type of money," Keith wraps up Lance's sandwich and hands it over to him. 

"Yeah, like open your own restaurant," Pidge comments. 

"Or," Keith says loudly, "I could expand this business."

"Or you could open a restaurant," Lance repeats Pidge. 

"Whatever, it's my choice," Keith shrugs. "So, what do we need to do to enter?" Keith asks. 

"First you need to qualify," Lance explains. "And once you qualify, all the finalist food trucks will set up at Garrison Center Park for people to come by and try the food and Honerva will be there to judge. She'll choose the winner that evening."

"What do we need to qualify?" Keith hates how interested he sounds now.

"It's a vote by the people of Garrison," Lance tells him. "You have to get the top ten most votes to become a finalist."

"How are we even going to do that?" Keith groans. He's barely able to keep up with the social media for the truck as it is, and now he'll have to ask customers to go vote for him?

"I can," Lance answers as if it's the most obvious solution in the world. "In between clients and during breaks I can run over here, get some pics, post to your accounts, spread the word, and also be pushier than you likely will be to get people to vote for you."

"I just don't like asking people to vote for me," Keith flinches at the idea of having to add a please remember to vote for Keith's for the food truck competition! as he hands food to customers. 

"Keith, my buddy, pal, boy," Lance starts.

"Don't call me boy," Keith throws a crumpled napkin at Lance's head.

"Excellent service as always," Lance says dryly, picking up the napkin from where it fell to the ground. "You have one of the most loyal followings of all the food trucks in the city. So many people either start their day with one of your breakfast sandwiches or mark the middle of the day with one. You can get the votes, you just need some pushing along. I'll do that for you."

Keith remains silent, but it's Pidge who speaks up. "I hate to admit it, but Lance is right. He'd be perfect for helping with this part of the competition."

It's true. Lance has a solid following on social media for his work at the salon and usually has a fully booked schedule. A lot of that is thanks to the stunning photos he takes of clients and posts to his Instagram and Twitter. If anyone can elevate Keith's food truck on the internet, well, it is Lance.

Keith sighs. "Fine."

"Yes!" Lance punches the air in success. "This is going to be perfect. You're going to win, I know it."

"Can you calm down, we haven't even entered yet," Keith crosses his arms and leans back against the counter in the truck thinking about all the things that could get done on the truck if he were to have that money. The for-sale sign on the building he saw that morning also flashes through his head, but he squashes that down immediately. "Alright, Lance, I'm going to open for the day and we can talk more about this later."

Lance accepts that answer and uses it as a cue for him to also head off to the salon for work. Keith flips the sign on the truck to OPEN , and the first few people start to trickle over to form a line at Keith's. For a few hours. Keith lets himself get lost in the process of cooking and feeding the people of Garrison.

---

Frowning at the grapefruit in his hand, Keith gives the citrus fruit a gentle squeeze. It's definitely ripe enough that he could do something with it, but the issue is he hates grapefruit—not because he doesn't like the fruit but rather it eludes him. Grapefruits are a staple breakfast item, always featured in those glamor shots of Cheerios commercials with a perfect half sitting on a plate waiting for someone to dig in. There have been many mornings in Keith's life where half a grapefruit has functioned as his breakfast. But on his menu? He's been at a loss. He wants to fit them in somewhere but just hasn't decided how. 

Keith drops the fruit back into the large crate it had been in. He's at one of his favorite places in Garrison, the weekend farmer's market, and he's on the hunt for menu ingredients. After taking a step away from the grapefruits, Keith stops and picks another one up. Maybe he should get one or two just in case to throw around in the kitchen and see if he can come up with anything? Or he could be reasonable and give up now before he finds himself with a vendetta against the fruit.

"What did they do to you?" a voice asks from next to Keith, and it snaps him out of his grapefruit thoughts daze.

"What?" Keith responds quite eloquently.

When Keith once again places the grapefruit back in the pile and looks over at who spoke to him, he hopes his jaw didn't really drop because it sure feels like it did. In front of him, there is a tall man with broad shoulders and a chiseled face that has a scar perfectly laying across the bridge of his nose. He's smiling, and the focus of the smile is on Keith. 

"It just looked like you were going to murder that poor grapefruit," the man chuckles, and then he lifts a hand to scratch at the back of his neck. Keith wonders if that's a nervous tick as he watches metal fingers scrape at the short hairs at the nape of the man's neck, and Keith also finds himself contemplating if the trimmed silver hair there is as soft as it looks. 

"Oh," Keith continues his string of thoughtful replies.

"Sorry, I just, well—" he's stammering a little, which happens to be adorable, and it manages to wake Keith up from his stupor.

"I just don't know how to use them in my menu," Keith rushes the words out to explain his misdirected frustration at the fruit.

"Your menu, huh?" the corner of the man's mouth quirks up, and then he proceeds to give Keith an incredibly obvious once over. "You're a chef?"

"What gave it away," Keith replies flatly as he's still wearing his chef's jacket from working at the truck earlier.

"No one else could have that specific type of emotion towards a piece of food if not someone who has had to work with it, or tried to work with it, in a professional kitchen," the bold and beautiful silver-haired man tells Keith.

Keith lets out a small laugh at that. "I guess that's valid. I'm Keith," he sticks out a hand and the man takes it to shake. "And you are?" he asks.

"I'm Shiro," and now Keith finally has a name for the handsome individual who has been a nice inclusion in the sights of his farmer's market day. "So, do you have a restaurant in Garrison?"

"Oh, no," Keith shakes his head. "I've got a food truck."

"Food truck, huh?" an eyebrow raises. "What do you make, Keith?"

"Breakfast sandwiches," Keith gives the simple answer. "But they'll be the best ones you've ever had. I promise."

"Yeah?" Shiro makes the single word sound like a challenge but there's no real bite behind it.

"Yep," Keith snaps the p. "Come by sometime. I guess you're not from around here?"

"No, well, yes, kind of?" Shiro scrunches his face as he attempts to answer. "I am from Garrison, but I've been gone for a while. Just got back yesterday."

"What have you been doing?" Keith asks.

"Traveling," Shiro gives a one-shoulder shrug with his reply.

"Mysterious," Keith muses out loud. "I like it."

This time Shiro lets out a laugh. "Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah," Keith bites his lip and does a quick sweep of Shiro one more time, trying to take in as much as he can in the brief second. "Well, come by the truck sometime if you want."

"What's it called?"

"Keith's."

"That's a fantastic name."

"Isn't it?" Keith smirks and then turns around and walks away from Shiro.

"Where do you park?" Shiro yells after him.

Keith slows down and turns his head to yell back at Shiro. "You'll have to find me, Shiro!"

---

Ever since his run-in with Shiro at the farmer's market, Keith can't shake the man from his thoughts. There was just something about him that simply intrigued Keith in a way he wasn't expecting. The easy banter? The commentary on ingredients? The mystery? Keith really hopes that Shiro manages to find where the truck parks, especially since Lance has been doing a decent job of managing the social media now.

Which, speaking of, Lance was also trying to film a close-up of Keith assembling a vegan pesto sandwich, so he was naturally in Keith's way with no sense of space. 

"Lance, I will not hesitate to kick you off this truck," Keith threatens.

"But you need me," Lance complains and lowers his camera. "Now make that sandwich again so I can get it at another angle.

"I'm gonna fucking throttle you," Keith waves a knife and Lance, who dodges out of the way and tries to hide behind Pidge, which is laughable as Pidge is a good head and a half shorter than Lance. 

They're easily moving along in the lull between the breakfast rush and right before people will start rolling by the truck for lunch, so they have the odd customer here and there coming up for a sandwich. Lance has his day off, so he's, unfortunately, buzzing around Keith and Pidge all day. 

Just as Keith hands over the sandwich to the customer and tells them to vote for Keith's for the food truck competition, he hears the telltale sound of another food truck approaching the area where he's parked. Keith cranes his neck out of the serving window and sees a simple black and white truck approaching with some purple space-themed designs on the side, and as it turns the name pops out from the side's design: Bean Me Up. Below the name, the truck declares Vegan To Go. The truck parks across the street from Keith's, and Keith has no issue with some competition; he believes in his food's popularity. What surprises Keith is who he sees get out of the driver's seat and sends a little wave over to Keith. 

"Shiro?" Keith's jaw definitely drops open this time. 

"Who's Shiro?" Lance asks behind him, which Keith chooses to ignore.

"Hey there," Shiro says as he approaches Keith's truck. "How are you, Keith?"

"Good, good," Keith nods. "So Shiro, you have a truck, too, huh?" Keith rests his elbow on the small counter and sets his head in the palm of his hand. "You didn't tell me that yesterday.”

"You didn't ask," Shiro shoots back.

Keith rolls his eyes but the corner of his mouth tugs up. "Fair, but you didn't say anything that would make me asking if you had a food truck a reasonable question."

"Fair," Shiro smirks. Keith kind of wants to punch him. He also maybe wants to kiss him.

"So, you specialize in vegan, huh?" Keith points a finger over to Shiro's truck.

Shiro's smirk transforms into a wide smile. "Yeah," he nods. "I know sometimes people get sick of being preached to about veganism, but it's something I care about and enjoy, so basically the truck is a literal vehicle for me to spread some of that appreciation with."

Keith cannot believe he has found an ever-elusive vegan nerd. Or maybe Shiro found him. Either way, it's kind of endearing. "I like that," Keith leans on his elbows against the serving counter. "We have a vegan sandwich on the menu," Keith turns his head and nods over at the menu displayed on the side of the truck. "Can I get you one?"

"Yeah!" Shiro's eyes go wide with enthusiasm and he looks over the menu, most likely to read over the ingredients of the sandwich. 

"You got it, one vegan pesto comin' up," Keith pushes up from the counter and gets to work on the tiny grill to cook and assemble the sandwich. He knows it's dangerous to leave Pidge and Lance alone with Shiro, but they're only a few feet away, what damage can they do?

"So, Shiro, is it?" Keith hears Lance attempt to put on some type of tough-guy voice. Apparently, there is plenty of damage his friend is capable of. "What are you planning to do with that truck over there, huh?"

"Um, well, make and sell food," Shiro's answer is perfectly acceptable to Keith, but Lance seems to not be satisfied. "I'm sorry, I didn't get your name?" Shiro hadn't because Keith had hoped to prevent allowing Lance and Pidge to meet him.

"I'm Lance, Keith's friend, and this is Pidge, his second in command," Lance rushes through the introduction. "That's all? Not entering the contest?" Lance pushes.

Keith grabs two slices of fresh multi-grain bread and spreads vegan butter on them so they’ll be ready for the grill to toast when the time is right. Next, he reaches for the vegan pesto he made that morning and the tofu he’ll coat it on.

"Contest?" Keith briefly turns his head to see the frown on Shiro's face.

"Food truck contest," Pidge replies, and oh good, she's going to get into this as well now.

Once a generous amount of pesto coats the slice of firm tofu, Keith gets it on the grill to cook for a few minutes. While that’s going, he grabs a tomato and an avocado to start slicing.

"Hosted by the one and only Chef Honerva," Lance adds. 

"Honerva?" Shiro's eyebrows shoot up. "Really?"

The bread finally gets placed on the grill with a pleasant sizzle sound, and it gets brown fairly quickly. Keith then assembles the sandwich, placing the tofu on a slice of bread first and then layering on the tomato and avocado with a topping of some arugula before lightly pressing the top piece of bread down.

"You hadn't heard?" Lance deflates from his attempted interrogation.

"No," Shiro shakes his head. 

Keith decides this has gone on long enough as he quickly wraps up the sandwich in some paper. He elbows his way in between Pidge and Lance at the counter so he can lean down and hand over the food to Shiro. "Here you go, one vegan pesto."

"Wow," Shiro gently takes the sandwich from Keith's hands as though it's something precious. His eyes are wide with something akin to childlike wonderment, and that makes Keith's heart skip a beat. It's cute. "Thanks, how much do I owe you?"

Keith gives a dismissive wave of his hand. "Nothing, it's on the house as a welcome to the neighborhood."

"Really, wow, well, come on over anytime, then," Shiro nods towards his truck.

"Does that mean you'll be parking here, then?" Pidge asks.

Shiro slowly looks between the three of them before he answers. "Uh, well, I don't know for sure." He raises the hand not holding a sandwich and runs metal fingers through his hair, which leaves the slightly longer locks at the top of his head and near his bangs slightly disheveled in an endearing way. "I'm still getting used to being in the city again, so I'll see. But this area does look like it has some good company." Shiro pointedly looks at Keith when he says this.

Keith sees some of his regulars are starting to make their way over to Keith's, and he panics remembering that this isn't a truck just for this beautiful vegan food truck man but for the people of Garrison, so he actually needs to work. "Well, it'd be nice to have you around," Keith says. "But it looks like we'll need to get to cooking now."

Shiro turns around and sees the few people making a clear beeline for Keith's. "Ah, it seems you do," Shiro smiles. "It was nice to meet you, Lance and Pidge, and good to see you again, Keith. But I'll hopefully be seeing you around. All of you," he hastens a little to add the last line, and that makes Keith feel just a tad amused.

"Enjoy the sandwich," Keith calls to him as he walks away.

"I will!" Shiro replies.

Thankfully, before Lance or Pidge can provide any what Keith is sure will be some colorful commentary on what just happened, the first customer of the day arrives at the truck, and Keith gets to work on taking orders and making sandwiches.

---

When Keith pulls into the commissary that evening, he sees a new but familiar truck in the lot. Bean Me Up happens to be parked right next to Keith's usual spot, and Keith wonders just how Shiro knew. Did he have a secret Keith sense? Well, he definitely didn't. It was just starting to feel that way, and Keith wasn't sure that he didn't mind.

Once he parks and shuts down the truck for the day, Keith gets out and walks over to the open serving window of Shiro's truck and sees the other chef moving around the cooking area. 

"Hey, there," Keith says loud enough for Shiro to hear over the low music playing from inside the truck.

Shiro's head whips back to see who called to him, and then a smile automatically appears on his face when he sees that it's Keith. "Hey yourself, I was hoping to see you again."

"You didn't know that this is the commissary I work out of?" Keith asks.

Quite surprisingly, Shiro blushes a bit. "Actually, I did ask which other trucks work out of here when I talked to the owner this morning and she mentioned yours."

"Well, did you like the sandwich?" Keith asks.

“It was amazing! Seriously. Do you make the vegan pesto yourself?” Shiro asks, eyes wide with enthusiasm.

“Yeah, every morning. Some of the basil is from my garden,” Keith tells him with slight pride.

“That explains why it’s so damn good, and fresh!” Shiro being excited about food is something Keith relates to on a deep spiritual level.

“Well, thank you,” Keith bites his lip and looks away from the radiance that is Shiro. He finds his eyes settling on the truck’s name painted on the side. “Why is your truck called Bean Me Up?”

Shiro’s responding laugh sounds tinged with nerves. “Uh, well, I really like Star Trek and puns, and I use beans in several of my recipes...It made sense. And Scotty is my favorite.”

“Really, not Picard or Kirk?”

“Nope, Scotty’s my man,” Shiro replies, and for some reason it makes both of them dissolve into a momentary giggle-fit. Keith is both mortified and over the moon.

"Have you been waiting for me?" Keith finally asks when he’s able to regain his breath.

"Yeah," Shiro smiles sheepishly and once again he lets a hand run through his hair. Keith has definitely discovered his default nervous move. "I made something for you."

"You did?" Keith asks, taken aback.

Shiro turns around and grabs a bag that's sitting on the counter and then hands it over to Keith. "For you."

"What is it?"

"Let's call it dinner," Shiro shrugs.

"Dinner it is then," Keith huffs a small laugh and raises the bag slightly in his hand. "Thanks for this."

"Don't thank me now, thank me later if you like it," Shiro tells him.

"Well, I'll know where to find you tomorrow," Keith gives another small laugh, incredulous at the situation he's found himself in. "See you, Shiro."

"Bye, Keith," Shiro waves and watches Keith walk into the commissary.

Later, once he's home, Keith opens the paper bag and finds a neatly wrapped sandwich inside. There's writing on the paper. 

Breakfast for dinner -Shiro

After pulling back the wrapping to reveal the sandwich inside, Keith can’t help but to then pry off the top slice of bread and poke at the ingredients. It looks like a standard healthy breakfast sandwich that seems fitting for a vegan truck, but then there’s something extra inside. Keith gives an involuntary incredulous laugh that bursts forth from his mouth like the juices that would spurt from biting into a slice of the fruit inside. Grapefruit. There are bright pink wedges delicately sliced into thin pieces resting among avocado, sprouts, spinach, and what looks like vegan cream cheese with some basil and pepper. It’s kind of genius, Keith can’t help but think as he reassembles the sandwich.

Keith takes a bite, and the flavors fire off in his mouth. It’s tart and sweet with the smoothness from the avocado and cream cheese but the sprouts add a snap. Everything in the sandwich is fresh, but the basil elevates everything to a new level. The moan of appreciation Keith lets out is a bit embarrassing, but the hunger from a full workday is taking over, and he devours the sandwich with gusto.

---

“Is this normal for vegan food?” Lance asks. Keith, Lance, and Pidge are all leaning against the serving counter of Keith’s while peering out across the street to where Shiro has parked Bean Me Up. Keith knows he told Shiro he didn’t mind him sharing the same area for business because, well, Keith knows his customers and they always flock to Keith’s truck. Always. Except for today.

Shiro had given a little wave when he parked, and Keith had all intentions to go over and compliment the sandwich from the day before but Keith also happened to be running behind his morning and needed to finish setting up inside the truck before it opened. Today was also the first day that Shiro opened Bean Me Up for customers. Keith appreciated vegan food and admired Shiro’s dedication to it, but he didn’t think it would make that much a dent against his business.

Keith was so very wrong.

As Shiro fired up the grill on the truck, the most amazing smells started to waft out and spread across the street so the people on their way to work took a moment to stop and appreciate the aromas unfurling around them. Keith could pinpoint some of the scents—maple syrup, frying potatoes, cinnamon, and definitely some garlic as well. Keith knows full well that if he passed through an area that smelled that amazing, he would need to stop and find the source.

That’s why looking across the street at the massive line formed at Shiro’s truck makes Keith sigh wistfully. He can’t fault a single person waiting to order their food. Last night Keith also had a chance to taste a bit of Shiro’s cooking with the sandwich, so he knows what Shiro makes in that truck follows through on what the smells promise. It has to all be delicious. It’s just a tragedy that Keith has only had three whole customers so far today with most of his regulars betraying him to go over to Bean Me Up.

And then there’s Shiro. Perfect, beautiful Shiro who pushes his white bangs back with a hand and throws an easy smile at the next customer in line before taking an order. His sleeves are pushed up, and one bicep flexes beautifully while the other picks up the shine of the sun and manages to make Shiro glow even brighter. He doesn’t even have any help on the truck. It’s just him taking orders and making them, and he’s being exceptionally efficient in the process.

“His food is good,” Keith shrugs, finally answering Lance.

Lance slides his eyes to give Keith a sideways glance. “How do you know?”

“He made me a sandwich last night,” Keith tells him.

“Wow, he’s already cooked for you, huh,” Pidge gives a less-than-gentle jab to Keith’s side.

“He did it out of being nice, I’m sure, since I made him the sandwich for breakfast yesterday,” Keith dismisses whatever she’s trying to say before Pidge speaks it into the world.

“Still, he cooked for you,” Lance insists.

“Whatever,” Keith sighs. “And now he’s taking all the business, and it’s annoying because it’s kind of deserved.”

“Is it?” Pidge muses.

“Literally all our regulars are over there,” Lance bemoans.

“Our regulars? You don’t even work here,” Pidge leans around Keith between them and smacks the back of Lance’s head.

“Touché,” Lance admits and then pushes back away from the counter. “I have a client coming in 10 minutes, so I should go anyway.”

“Thanks, Lance,” Keith is mostly thanking him for finally leaving. 

Lance is just about to step away when he stops and leans back over the counter to look at the crowd of people at Shiro’s truck. “Is that Allura?”

“Where?” Keith perks up and squints across the way. Allura runs the outdoor and sporting goods store next door to the salon Lance works at, and it’s very much an open secret that the two of them are interested in each other and tend to be a bit flirty. Keith finds it painful since neither has taken the step to ask the other out yet. Allura also happens to be regular at Keith’s. 

“She’s at the side of the truck! She’s walking away! She has a bag in her hand,” Lance gasps, scandalized. “The love of my life has betrayed me.”

“Betrayed you?” Keith laughs. 

“The love of your life?” Pidge snorts.

“I’m trying to get you to qualify for the food truck competition and she’s over there supporting the, uh, well, she’s supporting the competition!” Lance cries, arms flailing. Keith watches Lance ramble mostly to keep an eye on the waving limbs so they don’t knock anything in the confines of the truck down.

“Shiro isn’t interested in the contest,” Keith tells Lance.

“Still!” Lance cries, and then, most disturbing of all, his face relaxes and he becomes serene.

“Oh god, what are you thinking,” Keith straightens up and frowns.

Lance does not reply and instead pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps on it. Keith leans over to try and see what he’s doing, but Lance quickly shifts away before raising the phone to his ear. A few seconds go by before Lance starts talking. “Hi, I would like to place an order for pickup.” Keith’s head whips to look over at Bean Me Up where he sees Shiro with a phone to his ear as well, tucked into his neck while he speaks and takes another order at the counter. 

Keith swears he can see Shiro’s mouth make the words, “Sure, what would you like?”

“Yeah, great, can I get six jackfruit bao buns, ten tempeh and mushroom yakitori, three-bean burgers and three tofu burgers, four sides of yakimeshi, two sides of bean salad, three orders of teriyaki eggplant, and, uh, two stir-fried cauliflower, ” Lance rattles off the neverending list and then stops for a second. “Actually, how many eggplant did I say?” There’s a pause as Shiro presumably says the answer over the phone. “Make that four.” Lance stays on the phone for another few seconds before saying his thanks and hanging up. He then swivels on his heels to turn to Keith and Pidge. “Between that order and that crowd, he’s going to be completely swamped.”

“I don’t know about that,” Pidge sighs.

“And why not?” Lance scoffs.

Pidge’s eyes flit between Lance and Keith, and she looks bored. “Because he never wrote anything down while you gave your order.”

“What?” Lance scoffs again, but the offense in his voice is heavier. “How could he remember everything I just told him while also dealing with the customers at the truck.” He points over at Bean Me Up.

Pidge simply shrugs, and the three turn back to their vigil watching the seemingly growing queue of people clamoring to get some of Shiro’s exquisite smelling vegan food. 

As time passes, Keith almost forgets the order that Lance placed as they get their own trickle of customers. The food service part of Keith’s brain thinks that Lance did an incredibly shitty thing as all that food is going to be made and sit there, never having anyone come to actually pick it up. Lance headed back to the salon shortly after placing the order and had no intention of stopping by to actually get the food. Keith is pretty sure Lance is an asshole, but Keith also supposes he’s not too bad, as their friendship has proved over the years. But the part of Keith’s brain that kind of wants to see the apparently perfect Shiro knocked down a bit revels in the idea that Shiro might slip up over at his truck.

Tragically, that is not the case.

When the line of people at Shiro’s truck finally dwindles down and the last person receives their food, Keith and Pidge watch as Shiro looks over to them and waves. Keith gives a polite wave back with as much a smile as he can muster while Pidge simply narrows her eyes at the other chef. Then, to their surprise, Shiro bends over to something they can’t see through his serving window and then moves towards the door to the truck. When he exists, they see that he’s carrying a couple of bags of food that likely contain the massive order Lance placed.

“Is he going to stand there and wait for someone to come pick it up?” Keith ponders aloud.

“Poor schmuck,” Pidge shakes her head.

He doesn’t simply stand there. Shiro sets down the bags and raises his phone to his ear—most likely to call Lance, who will not be picking up. Shiro hangs up without ever speaking to anyone, and then he takes the bags in his hands again and walks over to Keith’s.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?” Shiro asks. “If you’re not busy, I don’t want to inconvenience you!” he adds with haste.

Keith makes a dramatic show of looking around the truck. “As you can see, we are just slammed with orders right now, so no can do,” Keith smirks.

The tips of Shiro’s ears turn a glorious shade of pink, like fresh watermelon, Keith muses. “Sorry, I just didn’t want to impose.”

“You're not imposing,” Keith’s face loosens to a softer smile. “What do ya need?”

“Do you mind keeping an eye on my truck for a minute? Just make sure no one messes with it, I need to deliver an order real fast,” Shiro raises the bags in his hands slightly.

“Wha-What, oh, uh, yeah, sure,” Keith stumbles over his words, confused over Shiro’s claim to be delivering the order. There’s no way he knows it was Lance, right? Unless.

“Great, thanks!” Shiro’s face is bright. “I owe you one!”

With that, he leaves Keith and Pidge and starts making his way back across and down the street, clearly in the direction of the salon. 

“No,” Pidge gasps, and Keith’s jaw drops a little as they watch Shiro go into the salon. 

“Oh my god,” Keith breathes out. “Lance is so fucked.” 

After a few minutes, Shiro exits the salon, bagless, but he has two containers in his hands still. He walks back over to Keith’s and hands over the cardboard cups to Pidge and Keith, who take them cautiously.

“Here, for you, well, from Lance,” Shiro tells them. “He placed a big order earlier while he was over here I think. He didn’t say it was from him, but it sounded kind of like him. I thought he must be busy at the salon and just took it over for all the staff and clients, but he told me to bring you guys these.” Shiro nods at their hands. 

“Thanks,” Keith replies flatly. After that explanation, Keith would have in any other circumstance still thought what a poor schmuck about Shiro as Pidge had earlier said. There he was, thinking Lance did that out of the kindness of his heart for the salon when all he was doing was trying to fuck with Shiro, but there’s a glint of something in Shiro’s eyes as if he’s trying to hold back a particularly good joke. When he makes eye contact with Keith, he winks. Now Keith knows two things. One, Shiro knows exactly what Lance was doing, and two, Keith wants to be on the receiving end of another wink from Shiro but under a completely different context.

“It’s my pleasure,” Shiro grins, and the way the edges of his eyes crinkle makes Keith’s stomach swoop.

“That must have been a hefty dent on Lance’s wallet for the order,” Keith says, trying to move the conversation along.

“Oh, nah,” Shiro gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I told him it was on the house and I hoped that the salon and their clients would enjoy the food. That’s it.”

“Really?” Keith raises an eyebrow. “That’s kind of you.”

Next to him, Pidge opens the container and peeks inside. “What is this?” she asks.

“Oh, it’s some vegan yakimeshi fried rice, family recipe, twice modified,” Shiro explains.

“Twice modified?” Keith scowls.

“Yeah,” Shiro nods. “It was my grandmother’s, but then my mom changed it up a little because she didn’t like how much onion my grandmother always put in, and then when it was passed down to me I put all the onion back in but then also made it vegan by replacing the bacon and eggs with tempeh and soft seasoned tofu.”

Keith giggles, he honest to god giggles and then wants to smack himself, but he refrains and says the first thing that comes to his mind. “I like that.”

Shiro beams. “Thanks! I wanted to call it Twice Removed Yakimeshi as a joke, but then one of my friends told me that it makes it sound like it’s missing ingredients and no one else would get it. So. I didn’t.” Shiro rambles a little bit in his answer. 

“I think it would have been funny,” Keith tells him and then pops the top of the container off. The smell of the rice hits his nose immediately, and he can’t keep back the sigh he lets out. Keith should have known that the aromas spreading from the truck would mean that the food itself would also smell incredible. 

“Well, I’ll leave you guys to it, thanks again for watching over the truck,” Shiro says and raises his hand in a small wave. “Gotta get back over there and clean up a bit.”

“Oh, yeah,” Keith feels a little dazed. “Thanks for this!” he raises the rice in his hand, his mouth watering just a little as he also realizes he’s hungry.

“Any time!” Shiro smiles. “See you Keith, Pidge,” and with that, he walks back over to his truck.

Keith turns to look at Pidge, who is pinning him with a very stern look. “Shut up,” he tells her and rolls his eyes, grabbing a pair of the chopsticks that Shiro left with them and breaking them apart. “Don’t fucking say a word,” he grumbles.

“Okay, I won’t say that you have a crush on the vegan food truck guy,” Pidge shrugs and grabs the other pair of chopsticks.

“I hate you, and I hate Lance,” Keith declares before shoveling rice into his mouth and then sighing at the taste. Just like with the sandwich last night, everything is perfect, and it feels like one of the most comforting foods Keith has ever eaten.

“Actually, please, if all his food is this good, date him, become his boyfriend immediately if it means more access to this,” Pidge speaks excitedly as she keeps putting rice in her mouth. 

When Keith looks up, he sees Shiro leaning on the serving counter from his truck, head resting on a hand with a soft smile on his face. Yeah, Keith is fucked.

---

Keith collapses down on the oversized chair he bought on sale at the big furniture store a few towns over a couple of years ago. The chair had been discounted because it was broken, but it was a perfectly good and plush chair that was easy to snuggle into with a blanket and a book. When Keith brought it home, he fixed it up right away and gave it the prime spot in his living room next to the fireplace. The deep blue fabric always reminded him of space a little bit, and once he mentioned that to his mom, who then sent a blanket with stars on it to him as, what she called, a "just because" gift. It's the blanket he keeps thrown across the chair now, and it's her face he sees when the video call connects on his phone.

"Keith! My baby!" she cries over the small screen. "Get over here!" she turns her head to undoubtedly yell at his dad, who pops up partially in the camera's view a few seconds later. 

"Hey," Keith smiles and gives a tiny wave to the camera.

"Is that all you have to say to greet your parents?" his dad says through the phone. 

Keith rolls his eyes. "Hi, Mom and Pa, it's good to see you both, I miss you." He rattles it off with a tone dripping with evidence of how tired he is, a yawn struggles to break free, but the smile never drops from his face. He's happy to see them, and they know that.

"That's more like it," Keith's dad's laugh has always been something deep and warm that's been as comforting as his arms around Keith when he was little and scared in the middle of the night after a terrible dream. 

"How are you doing?" Keith asks while shifting around in the chair to get more comfortable.

"We're fine, business is, as usual, blah, whatever," Keith's mom waves her hand, immediately brushing off sharing anything about their lives in order to hear about their son. "What's going on with you? We saw the posts about the food truck contest."

"Yeah," Keith nods. "It's being hosted by Chef Honerva, and we have to get votes in order to be contestants in the final. Voting is going for another few days, but I'm feeling good about it for the most part."

"You've got the best food truck in town," Keith's dad scoffs. "You've got nothing to worry about."

Keith contemplates whether he should talk to them about this, and against his better judgment, he decides to tell them about Shiro. "Well, this new truck came to town, it's a vegan one, and it's been a big hit. The owner and chef, Shiro, he's a good guy, and he parks across from my truck and, uh, well, he gets a lot of business."

His mom jumps on this information immediately. "Is he taking your customers? I'm still friends with people who work in Garrison Town Hall, I can be on the phone with them in two seconds and get his ass kicked to somewhere else."

"Krolia, babe," Keith's dad beats him to calm down his mom by putting a hand on her shoulder. "I don't think that's necessary, do you, Keith?"

"No," Keith huffs. "Like I said, he's a good guy, I like him, and it's not bad having some friendly competition."

Instead of making his mom stand down from her plan of attack to run Shiro and his food truck out of Garrison, Keith's words instead perk her up. "You like him? Friendly, huh?" her tone is annoyingly knowing.

"Mom," Keith says with as much sternness he can comfortably use against his mother without her giving him a lecture on respect.

She puts her hands up in acquiescence. "I was just wanting to check, but okay, I'll back off there, too."

From there, conversation manages to make itself back to comfortable topics like how things are going with the restaurant his parents run on the other side of the state and some new recipes they've been developing. Some of Keith's uncles are coming up to visit his parents in the next month, so they've been getting ready to have their house overrun by several 6-foot-tall men with large appetites. Keith ends up telling them about the attempted prank-slash-sabotage of Lance's against Shiro's truck and how it failed miserably, and that tale ends with his dad crying from laughing so hard while his mom poorly attempts to hold back her own amusement. 

"Poor Lance really does try," she says shaking her head. "Has he made any progress with that Allura?"

But as with all their calls, it eventually meanders to the one thing he can never make them stop talking about. 

"So, when do you think you'll make the move with your food truck out here?" Keith's dad finally asks.

Keith sighs. His family all used to live in Garrison together, but then his mom received a job opportunity on the other side of the state, and his dad with his endless support had closed up the family restaurant they ran in Garrison and moved them all to Marmora. As soon as Keith had been able to after school, he'd moved himself back to Garrison and started his life in the town from his childhood. He had his house and his truck, and that's all he needed. Would it be nice to be near his family again? Definitely, but they were only a few hours away. He liked his life in Garrison.

"I'm not leaving Garrison," Keith sighs. "I've told you."

"We know, we know," his dad winces, regretting bringing it up immediately. "I just wanted to check."

"We love you and miss you, Keith," his mom tells him as if he doesn't know, but her eyes are a little misty. Maybe it's been too long since he's made the trip over to see them. After the competition, he definitely needs to go.

"I love and miss you, too," his voice is quiet. "But my life is here now."

"Of course," his mom nods, but Keith still feels a pang of guilt that never completely goes away when he talks to them. Parents just want their kids close, and he gets that.

"Anyway, where's Kosmo? I want to see my dog," Keith declares.

"Your dog, eh?" Keith's dad's eyebrow raises. "Well, he keeps managing to get bigger every single day." And then he takes the phone into the backyard where Keith sees that, yes, Kosmo is definitely bigger than the last time his parents sent pictures to him, as he excitedly runs around following a small rabbit, but never catching it. 

Keith really misses them all.

---

Pushing himself back up from where he'd been on his knees in the dirt of his backyard garden, Keith hears the latch on his gate open. There are only two people it could be—Lance or Pidge—so he doesn't bother to look over and keeps his focus on the tomato plants he's moving over to a new bed he spent the weekend making for them. When two sets of footsteps get closer, he finally turns his head and almost drops the plant in his hand in surprise.

Lance is there, which is normal, but what is not normal is the fact that Shiro happens to be trailing behind him with hands shoved into the pockets of the hoodie he's wearing.

"What's up, Keith!" Lance says to him as if that's a regular way he greets Keith, which it is not. His friend clearly knows he's on potentially thin ice bringing Shiro here without telling Keith ahead of him.

“What’s going on?” Keith frowns and stands up.

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Lance waves his hand in front of his own face in a dismissive way. “I just happened to run into Shiro here—”

Shiro cuts him off. “I was at the outdoor supply store.”

“Details,” Lance once again brushes anything said aside. “But he asked about you, and I said well, if Keith isn’t out in the truck, there’s only one other place he can be, so I brought him here.”

“Against his will?” Keith crosses his arms to ask.

“No—”

“Lance insisted—”

Shiro and Lance speak at the same time and then turn to each other with their mouths slightly agape. Keith has to repress the desire to laugh at how ridiculous they both are, but at least one of them is cute when he looks flustered. And that’s Shiro.

“I’m sorry to impose, I’ll leave,” Shiro apologizes and takes a step back.

“Nonsense!” Lance cries, and Keith really needs to ask why he’s picked up new vocabulary for this entire incident. “I need to get back to the salon in a bit and meet with Allura, so I’ll leave you two to…” Lance trails off and looks down at the dirt piles by Keith’s feet. “Well, I’ll leave you to whatever it is Keith does out here.”

“It’s a garden, I garden,” Keith layers the words with as much annoyance as he can so Lance knows he will very much get a talking to later.

“Sure, sounds great!” Lance waves too cheerily. “See you both later!” And with that, he leaves Keith’s backyard as if he did nothing wrong and this is all perfectly fine.

Shiro breaks the silence between them with a small chuckle. “So, I take it he likes Allura, right?”

Keith sighs heavily. “Oh, you have no idea.”

“Sounds like you’ve had to suffer through it,” Shiro rocks on his heels and somehow manages to look like he’s shoving his hands deeper into his pockets with how he also hunches his shoulders.

“Yeah, anyway, why were you looking for me?” Keith cuts right to the point.

“Oh, well, I thought maybe since I’m still semi-new around here you’d be able to give me some tips on places to go for some vegan food in Garrison,” Shiro explains. “I went looking for the truck, but you weren’t there, so I ducked into the outdoor supply store to just look around for a bit, which is where I ran into Lance...and here I am.”

“So here you are,” Keith repeats.

The two stand there, looking at each other for a few seconds, with no movement or words between them. The day is overcast and slightly chilly, so the hoodie Shiro wears should be enough to keep him warm. It looks a little small on him with how it snugly covers his chest, but it also has signs of being well-worn and therefore well-loved. Keith wonders if it would be soft to lay his hand right on the middle of Shiro’s chest, feel the hard muscle underneath the comfortable cotton. 

Finally, Shiro clears his throat, and it causes Keith to come back to himself and look at the other man. “I’m sorry again, I’ll get going now so you can keep gardening.” He once again attempts to retreat away.

“Hold on,” Keith stops him. “You wanted to check out some vegan places here, right?” Shiro nods. “Then how’s this, you can help me with a few things around the garden, then we both get cleaned up and head out for some food, yeah?”

Shiro seems to hesitate for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, sounds good.”

They briefly venture into the house so Keith can find some clothes for Shiro to change into so he doesn’t get dirt all over what he’s wearing, and it’s with both a great deal of thanks and regret he realizes that even his biggest shirt will be too small on Shiro. What a misfortune. 

In the end, Shiro puts on the sweatpants—tight and ankle-length on him—and an old Mickey Mouse sweater that Keith found that was likely stolen from his dad’s clothes that he never wore.

“I look ridiculous,” Shiro stares down at himself.

“I think it’s a good look,” Keith covers his mouth with a hand, clearly trying to hide a smile.

“Well, if you think so, I guess,” Shiro shrugs. 

“You do,” Keith lowers his hand. “Very cute.”

The tips of Shiro’s ears turn a pleasant shade of pink. “Oh, well, that’s good.”

“Alright, vegan boy, let’s get you into some dirt, and then we can go out, right?” Keith tries to joke a little to make Shiro comfortable.

“Yes,” Shiro claps his hands together and rubs them together.

There are a couple of small tasks, like finishing moving the last of the tomato plants over, that Shiro quickly picks up on after Keith tells him what to do, and they get everything settled in that part of the garden. As they work, Shiro asks Keith different questions about what all he has in the garden, what’s seasonal, and how he chooses what to grow. Keith excitedly answers all of Shiro’s questions because he knows the other chef actually cares about fresh ingredients. 

The two finally reach the last task that Keith had been saving—planting the small lemon tree he had acquired earlier in the day. He had specially ordered it from the local nursery, and it had at last arrived bright and early this morning. Keith doesn’t know how well it will grow, but in the best case he’ll have some fresh citrus for the food truck.

Shiro and Keith work together to dig the hole and then maneuver the tree through the yard, almost like a dance, until they can settle it down into its new home. Some piling of dirt back on later and the tree has been successfully planted as part of Keith’s garden.

“It looks good if I do say so myself,” Shiro’s hands are on his hips as he admires the small tree.

“It’s perfect,” Keith agrees. “I hope it gives some lemons.”

“Well, when life gives you a lemon tree...make…” Shiro trails off, clearly losing his way to whatever joke he wanted to attempt to make. It’s endearing and makes Keith laugh.

“You’re cute,” Keith tells him through a snorting laugh.

“So you’ve said,” Shiro replies, wryly.

“I’m sorry,” Keith is not sorry at all, but he leads them back inside and hands Shiro a towel so he can go to the extra bathroom and take a shower before they head out for their—well, Keith doesn’t know what it is, but they’re hanging out and getting food.

Nevertheless, Keith pulls on some of what he considers to be his nicer comfortable clothes for going out.

“You clean up well,” Keith comments when he finds Shiro sitting in the living room, changed out of his ill-fitting and covered in dirt clothes and back in the well-fitting and cozy outfit he arrived in.

Shiro looks up from his phone to where Keith is standing. “I could say the same for you.”

“Aren’t you charming,” Keith rolls his eyes. All his desire to be annoyed by the cocksure chef has slowly ebbed away the more he talks and spends time with him. He wants to brush those white bangs off Shiro’s forehead and kiss the skin underneath. 

Eventually, they make it to the downtown area of Garrison where most of the food trucks tend to be parked in the evening, waiting for couples and friends out for the weekend and on the prowl for something to eat. Thanks to being a food truck owner and chef as well as an avid connoisseur of the food trucks in the city, Keith knows almost all the trucks and their locations like the back of his hand. He beckons Shiro from one street to another making sure they hit up every place that Keith thinks that Shiro will like. Garrison may not have many dedicated vegan trucks—or at least not nearly as successful as Shiro’s—but most of them tend to have a vegan option or two on their menu. 

It’s endearing, Keith muses, the way Shiro animatedly talks to each of the chefs if they’re not too busy in the truck about their menu and the food. He asks them what inspired them to start their businesses and listens to each story with rapt attention, interjecting small follow-up questions here and there. 

They’re standing by one of Keith’s favorite dessert trucks that specializes in fresh fruit popsicles. Keith holds his strawberry lime popsicle off to the side while watching Shiro talk to the owner about how their family moved to Garrison 50 years ago and have always had some type of food business, so the truck ended up being theirs. 

Shiro has been in Keith’s life only a few weeks and in rather brief moments, but something about the time they’ve spent together today has Shiro carving out a space within Keith’s heart frighteningly fast. He feels like someone can open up to on a late-night stroll through Garrison Main Park and spill his secrets with across the path. Shiro would likely pick up each piece of information Keith divulges and hold it with the utmost care. Something inside Keith aches.

Lost in thought, Keith misses Shiro turning around to look at him, and the smile on his face falls almost immediately after setting his eyes on Keith. “Are you okay?” Shiro asks, eyebrows furrowing as he moves closer to Keith.

Shaking his head quickly, Keith takes a half-step back from Shiro out of reflex and then regrets it immediately with how fast Shiro retracts his outstretched hand with a wince. “Sorry, just lost in thought a little. I’m fine, really.” Keith sees the doubt clearly in Shiro’s face. “I promise, trust me.”

Shiro nods, still not convinced fully. “Okay, if you say so.”

An idea comes to Keith, and before he can change his mind, he grips one of Shiro’s wrists and tugs. “Follow me.”

“What—” Shiro doesn’t get his question out before Keith starts dragging him through Downtown Garrison to a certain building he has a habit of staring at every morning when he includes it on his commute. Keith is aware of the building anytime he’s in downtown and can navigate there from any corner of the city with his eyes closed. 

Once they arrive in front of the building, Keith lets go of Shiro’s wrist, both embarrassed he held on for so long but also reluctant to let it go.

“Where are we?” Shiro asks now that they’ve finally stopped their brisk walk through the streets. His eyes scan the For Sale signs in the windows that are covered up by brown paper. It’s looked this way for several months now.

Keith turns and faces Shiro. “I grew up in Garrison. I was born and raised here, for the most part, and this,” Keith gestures to the building, “used to be my dad’s restaurant. It was a diner-type joint, usually only open for breakfast and lunch and for dinner on the weekends. Working here with my dad and helping out was how I grew to love food and knew when I grew up I wanted to do something similar.

“When I was in high school, my mom got a job on the other side of the state. It was a good opportunity for her, and my dad loves her so much, he would never hold her back for his own business. He said that he could open a restaurant anywhere, which is true, but I had grown such an attachment to this place I kinda resented them both for picking us up and closing this place down.

“As soon as I graduated and could move out, I came back to Garrison. At first, I thought I wanted to open this place back up, but there was another restaurant in it already. I ended up buying my food truck and starting that business with money I had been saving, and when the place that opened in here closed, well, I didn’t have anything left to try and get this place. My dad says I should move on, he’s got a new restaurant that’s similar and been doing really well where they live now, but there’s something about this place I can’t let go…” Keith trails off at the end of his story, and Shiro remains quiet, clearly waiting to see if Keith has anything else to say.

“So do you want to open a physical restaurant one day then?” Shiro asks.

Keith shakes his head, “Nah,” Keith replies. “I like my truck and think I’m happy just having it. It’s easier.”

“But you can’t shake the idea of a restaurant in the place that made you the chef you are today, right?” Shiro reads Keith easily.

“I guess, but really, I’m happy with the food truck life,” Keith shrugs.

“Being honest for a moment, I thought you were going to tell me you want to win the contest so you can buy this place,” Shiro tells him.

Keith opens and shuts his mouth a few times, not ready to admit that yes, he’s thought about that. “Maybe, but I’m more concerned about first upgrading the truck or even getting a second one.”

Shiro nods. “A second one would be nice, you could have a whole new area of Garrison that would start their day with your food. Or mark the best part of the workday with it—lunch break.” Shiro smirks.

“Yeah, well, my parents also keep bugging me about moving back out to their side of the state to be close to them again. I think being empty nesters hit them harder than they thought it would, even though plenty of family members come to visit them constantly, so it would be easier to drive a truck or two out there instead of dedicating myself to something brick-and-mortar,” Keith explains.

“I get that,” Shiro agrees. “I used to live in Garrison, too, but I left a couple years back.”

"You what?" Keith's mouth drops open slightly.

Shiro shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. "Yeah, I'm originally from here, but I left a few years ago..." He trails off.

"Why'd you leave?" Keith asks.

His eyes dart around for a second before finally settling on Keith. "I wanted to see what else is out there. I like Garrison a lot, I really do, I spent most of my life here, but there's a whole culinary world out there that I couldn't let go of and wanted to experience it. I had an incident that was kind of the driving force behind it, but I just set out one day...picked up the food truck on the way, fixed it up, developed the menu...So then I was basically driving around in my food truck, making food, watching people enjoy and eat it, and all while I was getting to see the food scenes in all these fantastic cities. Like, have you been to Albuquerque? It's amazing."

Shiro's entire demeanor lights up as he talks about his food adventures. The hands hastily pushed into his pocket emerge and wave around as he excitedly talks about the Indigenous run restaurants he was able to stop at and speak to the families who ran them. His voice speeds up a little bit as he goes, eyes shining bright in the low streetlight that glows behind him as the sun has set while they were walking over to the building that formerly houses Keith's dad's restaurant. If Keith hadn't been severely endeared to Shiro already, this would have been the final lasso to capture Keith's heart. 

Keith must have a dazed look on his face, which is entirely to do with how much he's enjoying watching Shiro and listening to his voice and not due to finding the stories boring in any way, but it seems that Shiro assumes the latter. His voice falters before he cuts himself off. "Sorry, I'm rambling, and it's boring. I just get really hyped about all this."

"No, I think it's cute," Keith admits, and then he's treated to watching Shiro shut down in a new way. Keith would maybe even go so far as to say he was adorable, the way Shiro's eyes went wide and he quickly looked to the side as if that could so easily hide the tiny, pleased smile on his face. "But also, I want to know what brought you back here? If you've been out on this grand food tour with your truck, there's gotta be something that dragged you back to town."

"Oh, yeah," Shiro looks back at Keith and chuckles. "It's my 30th birthday coming up, so I came back to celebrate with my brother. Well, twin brother. We're both turning 30."

The words enter Keith's brain and immediately fry it. Keith has stopped working. He needs some time to process the information that he was just given, and he's fairly sure his jaw is close to completely being on the sidewalk at this point. Finally, when he can grasp words again, he utters an eloquent reply. "There are two of you?"

Shiro's abrupt laugh rings through the empty street, brash and full of life as he doubles over to put his arms around himself and let out an endless stream of snickers. Keith pouts. Anyone would have been shocked with learning that Shiro happens to have a twin. 

Finally, Shiro calms down and sees Keith's unamused face with his arms crossed. "I'm sorry, sorry," Shiro waves and wipes a tear from his eye. "Your face, it was just really great."

"What was wrong with it?" Keith narrows his eyes.

"Absolutely nothing, it's perfect," Shiro straightens up and flashes another smirk.

"Whatever," Keith rolls his eyes. "You were saying something about celebrating your 30th birthday with who I assume is the nicer twin."

"I'm sorry, I apologized!" Shiro throws his hands into the air, and Keith wants to maintain his facade of being annoyed, but, unfortunately, Shiro has been managing to break down every wall that Keith keeps around himself like a bulldozer. 

"Sure, sure, I'll accept for now," Keith reluctantly tells him.

"Thank you, I owe you," Shiro says accompanied by what can only be described as a giggle. "But, yeah, our parents and some of our friends will be in town and over at his house in a couple of days to celebrate. We're Leap Year babies, so it’s not our actual birthday, we have to celebrate on the 28th, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity."

"You're a twin and born on a Leap Year," Keith shakes his head. "You're unreal."

"You'll find that I'm very real, baby," Shiro likely uses the term of endearment as a joke, but it has an immediate effect on Keith. His stomach heats, and he wants to hear Shiro call him that again. He wants Shiro to call him that before kissing him, while passing Keith a spoon to try food Shiro cooked, when Shiro is inside Keith—he wants all of that, and the realization of how much he desires to have all that with Shiro, someone he's just getting to know, scares the hell out of Keith. But Keith has also never been one to back down from something that scares him.

"Yeah, you gonna let me find out?" Keith asks and slowly takes a few steps, closing the distance between the two of them. Shiro has several inches of height on Keith, so he's forced to look down at Keith as the space between them reduces to barely an inch. 

Shiro hums. "If you'll let me."

"I will."

Shiro reaches out and rests a hand on the back of Keith's neck and lets his thumb play with the longer strands of dark hair there. "Tell you what? I agreed to cook for the birthday dinner, would you want to come and help out? Be my co-chef for the evening, and then we can hang out with my friends and family, or we can go somewhere else."

"I'd love to," Keith gives his answer quietly. "But the whole reason you're here is to see your family and friends, so I'm not going to take you away from them. We'll cook together and then stay there."

"Fair," Shiro nods. He grips Keith's hair lightly before letting it go and trailing his hand down Keith's neck, across his shoulder, and then caresses down Keith's arm. "Sounds like a plan."

Keith wants to lean up into those lips, kiss Shiro breathless on this sidewalk, but he also wants to try and take things a little slowly with him. Open up to each other in increments. The fact Keith will be meeting all the people who are important to Shiro in a matter of days already feels like they're bounding past several steps in the order of things for a possible new relationship, but maybe that's just who the two of them will be—a little unconventional. 

"I won't do anything right now that you don't want to," Shiro whispers, their faces are close and Keith feels the tiny puff of air with every word against his own mouth. With great reluctance, he pulls back.

"Let's go to another truck, and then we can talk about the menu you're planning for the dinner," Keith tells him.

Shiro nods. "Sounds like a plan, lead the way," he extends his arm out to gesture at the street. 

Keith takes Shiro's hands and tugs. "Come on, there's a soft-serve place I want us to go to."

WIth Shiro's hand in his, as they walk, Keith gives one more look over his shoulder at the building, before crossing the street.

---

Keith spends the next few days deciding on a menu with Shiro for the birthday dinner, and there’s something thrilling about it. The menu at Keith’s has stayed the same, for the most part, since he opened the truck. He’s had some days here and there where he’s allowed himself to daydream of a menu if he were to ever open a restaurant, but Keith hasn’t seriously put together a menu in years. There’s also a warmth that settles in his chest when he talks to Shiro about it. Most of the conversation happens through short bursts of texts with ideas that they both come up with, and more often than not, they’re shooting messages to each other while working at their respective trucks across the street from each other. Keith can look up after sending an appetizer idea to Shiro and immediately see the way the other chef’s face lights up when he receives the notification.

It’s upsettingly easy for Keith to get along with Shiro and allow him into his life bit by bit.

The morning of Shiro’s birthday, Keith sets some extra time aside at the commissary when he’s getting prepped for the day to get a few other ingredients ready for his small surprise for Shiro. When Keith had been contemplating opening a physical restaurant, he’d developed a few recipes that he’d only properly tried out once or twice. He decides to revisit those before the truck opens. Pidge watches for the corner, giving him a knowing raised eyebrow at the fact he’s clearly not making breakfast sandwiches but food that appears like it requires plating.

Well, Keith doesn’t have proper plates, but he has some tupperware he grabbed from his house, which may not make for the most artful presentation, but it will serve the purpose he needs. Keith places the food into the containers and tells Pidge over his shoulder that he’ll be right back.

“Yeah, go talk to your boyfriend,” Pidge shoos him away.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Keith argues.

“Not yet, at least,” Pidge sighs heavily and wipes down part of the grill that Keith just used. He decides that the comment does not deserve any response from him.

When Keith arrives at the serving window to Shiro’s truck, Shiro leans down on his elbows and looks at him with a glowing smile. The sun is still rising, and the light hits the bright white of his hair, and there are soft crinkles at the edge of his eyes that soften his face. “Hey,” he simply greets Keith.

“Hey, it’s the big day!” Keith bounces on his heels a little.

“Oh yeah, you find out if you’re a finalist for the competition today,” Shiro replies with a knowing grin. Keith wants to kiss it.

He rolls his eyes instead. “Shut up, you know full well I came over here to wish you a happy birthday!” 

“Oh,” Shiro gives a fake gasp. “You did? Keith, I’m flattered.”

“Shut up,” Keith mutters and looks away from Shiro’s much to bright face. “Or I’ll take this back with me.” He lifts the containers in his hands.

“What’s that?” Shiro asks.

“I, uh—” Keith coughs and once again averts his eyes from Shiro. “I made you breakfast.” He risks a glance back up to Shiro.

“For me?” All joking and sarcasm have left Shiro’s voice, and his eyes have gone wide. “Keith, you didn’t have to, you’re already helping me tonight.” His voice is soft.

“Yeah, well, you still deserve something that’s just for you, and well, the other part is these are some recipes I came up with myself, so they felt right to share with you?” Keith explains. “So please, here you go.” Keith lifts the containers again.

Shiro takes them carefully from Keith’s hands as if he’s being handed some precious, which, in a sense, Keith supposes the contents of the tupperwares are valuable to Keith. They’re the fruits of weeks of free-time trying to create his own recipes, and this is the first time he’s made any of them to share with someone else. 

“Thank you, Keith, I don’t know what to say, so I’ll just keep saying thank you over and over until you’re sick of it,” Shiro’s head tilts slightly and that blazing smile is back on his face.

“I’m already sick of it, so just eat up and tell me how you like it,” Keith has less bite in his voice than he was hoping for, so it comes off a little more pouty and petulant than planned. 

“Of course,” Shiro nods and retreats into the truck to find some utensils before popping open the lid of the topmost container that contains vegan breakfast hash that’s bursting with color from all the vegetables. Shiro carefully sticks the fork in and gathers some mushrooms and peppers with a piece of potato onto it and finally takes a bite. There are a few excruciating seconds where Keith stands there and watches Shiro chew before the chef’s eyes light up. “Keith, this is amazing!” Shiro finally says, hastily attempting to finish chewing while also gathering another forkful and complimenting Keith. “Like, really damn good.”

“You’re just saying that,” Keith tries to brush off the praise, but he can already feel his cheeks heating at being told the food is good.

“I’m not! This is amazing,” Shiro keeps showering Keith with positive comments on the food. “The spice levels are just right where you want them, and I don’t think I’ve ever had mushrooms this tender before. How did you do that?”

“It’s a secret,” Keith shrugs, jokingly playing it off. 

“If you keep making this, then by all means, keep your secrets!” Shiro laughs. “I know this may not be what you want to hear, but, Keith, seriously, if you ever did open a restaurant, I think you really have something here already with just this dish. I haven’t tried the rest,” he gestures at the other containers, “but I know those will all be as amazing if not more.”

“Thanks, Shiro,” Keith pushes the words out of his mouth, still struggling to accept this level of praise from anyone, especially another chef with the amount of success as Shiro has, but part of Keith feels so damn proud right now that he’s telling himself he’s allowed to have this, just for a few moments, he can.

Keith’s phone vibrates in his pocket, and he remembers he’s also been tense this morning. At any moment he can receive the email saying his truck is a finalist or not for the competition, and this could very much be it. He pulls his phone out and sees the email is indeed from the competition and rushes to open it.  

Shiro has noticed from where he’s still eating. “Is it the competition?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Keith breathes and opens the email

Dear Keith Kogane,

We are happy to inform you that your food truck, KEITH’S, is a finalist in Chef Honerva’s Garrison City Food Truck Competition…

Keith stops reading and looks up at Shiro and can’t stop the small sound of triumph that breaks free from his lips. “I’m a finalist!” 

“Hell yeah, you are!” Shiro punches the air and suddenly leaves the truck and runs down to the sidewalk where Keith is. “I’m proud of you.” Keith is so stunned by the comment that he barely comprehends Shiro moving again and enveloping him in a hug until the muscular arms are warm and around him. After a few dazed seconds, Keith puts his arms around Shiro and lets himself bury his face into the crook of Shiro’s neck.

“Thank you,” Keith whispers.

“It was all you,” Shiro chuckles.

“No,” Keith shakes his head and reluctantly pulls back. “It was me, but also Pidge and Lance...and you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, well, you’ve been really encouraging, okay,” Keith laughs lightly.

They’re still standing awfully close, parts of their bodies are touching, which Keith is becoming hyper-aware of, then something buzzes and makes Keith flinch out of Shiro’s hold. Shiro visibly cringes at this, which makes Keith regret his reaction.

“Sorry, that’s my phone,” Shiro apologizes and pulls the device out of his pocket. A scowl falls across his face as he looks at whatever is on the lock screen, and Keith stands there as Shiro taps and then reads something on the screen.

“Everything okay?” Keith asks.

“Uh, um, yeah,” Shiro clears his throat. “I guess Bean Me Up is in the competition, too...it won for the write-in category.”

Keith stands there stunned for a moment. “Well, your food is good, so that makes sense.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to be in the competition...I wonder if I can find a way out of it,” Shiro whines. 

“Hey, no fair, I want to go up against you!” Keith takes a step closer and pokes Shiro in the chest. “If I’m going to let you eat my secret food, then you better not chicken out and stay in the competition, unless you think you’ll lose against me, old timer?”

“Old timer, huh?” there’s a sparkle in Shiro’s eye and he laughs, but it’s a singular puff of air. “It would be my honor to face you in a food truck battle.” Shiro grips Keith’s wrist where his hand is still settled against Shiro’s chest. 

“Good,” Keith falters unsure of what to say next or even how to move away. But then Shiro’s smile unfurls slowly like honey dripping down fingers, and it’s something so predatory that Keith can only hope to be so lucky to be caught in those claws.

“I can’t wait.”

---

Keith pulls up on his bike to the address Shiro sent him earlier and takes off his helmet to gaze up at the surprisingly modern design. Most houses in Garrison tend to be more traditional and on the cozy side, like his modest cottage-esque home, but, tucked away in the trees, this sleek house looked straight from a spread in Architectural Digest. Shiro had told Keith all he needed to do was bring himself, he would have everything ready for the menu they put together for the evening, but all the same, Keith had stopped at his favorite vegan bakery on the way and picked up a box of cupcakes that he had carefully strapped to the back of his bike. He carries them up with him to the front door and rings the doorbell.

When the door opens, it’s Shiro in front of him. But it’s not. The man looks like Shiro—same face and jawline that Keith wants to run his teeth along--but there’s no scar across the bridge of his nose and his hair is black instead of bright white.

“You must be Ryou,” Keith says.

“And you must be Keith,” Ryou nods. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Shiro. Come in.” It’s bizarre to see a variation of the smirk he’s gotten to know fairly well across someone who looks exactly like Shiro’s face. 

Keith knows they’re two separate people, especially by the fact that Ryou works in some part of the tech industry and dresses in more stylish casual clothes than the cozier look that Shiro tends to go for that’s worn with ease of movement in the kitchen in mind. 

“I hope it’s good things and not about how I’m trying to destroy his food truck business,” Keith replies. 

Ryou chuckles. “He did mention an incident involving a sizable pick-up order that ended up being more of a delivery order.”

Keith flushes at the memory. “It wasn’t me! It was my friend,” he attempts to poorly excuse the mess of a situation. 

“It’s okay, I thought it was funny,” Ryou brushes him off. “Anyway, he likes you.”

“Who?” 

Keith’s question makes Ryou laugh again, and once more Keith finds himself fascinated with how his mannerisms are similar but still just a few degrees off from Shiro’s. “Who? Shiro, duh.”

“Oh,” Keith breathes out the word quietly and more for himself than anything.

“Anyway, I should thank you for cooking this evening with him,” Ryou goes on. “I was fine making him cook on our birthday, but two professional chefs? That’s a whole treat.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Keith has genuinely been looking forward to the evening, even beyond the underlying layer of nerves that comes with it. “Oh, and, here, happy birthday!” he says and holds out the box of cupcakes to Ryou.

“And you brought baked goods?” Ryou takes the box and clearly recognizes the logo on it as a resident of Garrison, he would be familiar with the bakery. “Shiro really found it all with you, huh.”

“Found what all?” Keith asks, but Ryou doesn’t get a chance to reply as the man himself appears in the foyer where the two had still stood talking.

“Is that Keith?” Shiro’s head sticks around a corner and when his eyes land on Keith, he fully walks over to Keith and Ryou as a smile spreads across his face. “Hey! Welcome!” he greets Keith.

“Hey, happy birthday again,” Keith tells him, and to Keith’s surprise, he finds himself enveloped in a quick hug by Shiro. Over Shiro’s shoulder, Keith looks at Ryou with wide eyes, and the twin bizarrely gives Keith a thumbs up. 

“Thank you, and thanks again for helping out with the cooking,” he looks over at Ryou. “Was this one bothering you?”

Ryou makes an offended sound. “Excuse me, I was actually in the middle of thanking him.”

“He was,” Keith nods and assures Shiro.

“And he brought baked goods,” Ryou raises the box in his hands. 

“Keith you shouldn’t have,” Shiro says.

Keith shrugs. “I wanted to, okay, you can’t stop me.”

“I guess I can’t,” Shiro sighs. “Well, come on, let’s introduce you to everyone, and then we can take over the kitchen.”

“Sounds good,” Keith replies, and his heart starts hammering at the thought of meeting everyone in Shiro’s life. 

They go to the living room where Keith first meets the Shiroganes, Shiro’s parents, who are both lovely and kind and clearly proud of both of their sons. 

“Which one are you dating? Shiro, I hope,” Shiro’s mom, whispers conspiratorially to Keith. She says it loud enough that Shiro and Ryou who are next to them hear. 

“Mom!” Shiro cries while Ryou snickers. 

“What?” she shrugs much in the same way that Shiro tends to while he’s attempting to poorly deny something.

“You’ll have to excuse her,” Ryou and their father, say at the same time. 

All four of the Shiroganes look at each other after the brief exchange and break into laughter together. It’s the sweetest and purest sight, and it’s the smallest window in Shiro’s life with his family, one that appears to be brimming with adoration and joy. Keith can’t help but smile softly watching them. 

A hand claps his shoulder and he raises his eyebrows to see Matt, Pidge’s brother, who he didn’t notice earlier when he entered the room with Ryou and Shiro. “Matt?” Keith says, confused.

“I was in the bathroom when you got here, but what a surprise to see my little sister’s boss,” Matt ruffles Keith’s hair. “What’s up?”

“How do you know Shiro?” Keith asks. He’s met Matt a few times since Pidge started to work for Keith, but he definitely didn’t know there was a connection to Shiro, or any of the Shiroganes for that matter.

“I’ve known Shiro and Ryou since we were kids, and I work with Ryou,” he explains. Keith did know that Matt worked for one of the big tech companies in town. 

“Does Pidge know?” 

“Probably.”

“And she never said anything?” Keith deadpans.

“Yep,” Matt snaps the word with a grin. Keith maybe hates the Holts a little bit.

“Oh, yeah, I figured you’d know Matt through Pidge,” Shiro appears at Keith’s side.

“Yeah, well, Pidge never mentioned she knew you,” Keith grumbles, feeling betrayed by everyone in his life. 

“That sounds like her,” Shiro nods sagely. “Anyway, let me introduce you to some of our other friends.”

Keith greets a few of Ryou’s friends from his company first, and from there Keith meets Hunk, who he vaguely knows through the general food scene in Garrison since he owns several prestigious restaurants in the city. Another famed chef in Garrison is also in attendance. Chef Iverson was credited with elevating the food scene in Garrison almost two decades ago along with Chef Honerva, and Keith feels a little starstruck to be meeting him while also finding out he was Shiro’s mentor.

“God, of course, he was,” Keith mutters as Iverson wanders over to talk to Shiro’s parents. “You probably know Honerva, too.”

“About that—” Shiro starts, but then Ryou bounds over to them and interrupts. 

“Hey, so, no pressure, but when are you two going to start on dinner?” Ryou asks with a hopeful grin.

Shiro rolls his eyes. “Wow, it’s my birthday, too, let me relax for a bit.”

“Relax after,” Ryou argues. 

“You’re the absolute worst,” Shiro looks over to his parents and sees they’re distracted while talking to Chef Iverson before giving Ryou a wack to the chest. 

“Hey!” Ryou complains, but before he can say anything else, Shiro grabs Keith’s hand and drags him away.

“Okay, Keith and I are going to start cooking now!” Shiro declares as they disappear down a hallway, the sound of Ryou yelling something in annoyance following them.

When they make it to the kitchen, Shiro and Keith first fall against each other and start laughing. “You sure you’re 30 because that felt more like you were 13,” Keith snorts. “You even looked to make sure your parents wouldn’t see!”

“Well, I didn't want them to see!” Shiro attempts to make excuses for himself. “Whatever, it’s nothing they aren’t used to anyway. So, let’s get cooking?”

Keith claps his hands together. “Yes! Let’s go.”

Their menu for the evening is a fairly straightforward meal with a soup, main entree with some sides. Everything on the menu is vegan, which was an easy decision to make when Keith found out that Ryou also followed a vegan diet. 

Ryou’s kitchen looks about as Keith had expected it to with the same modern design as the rest of the house, but it also appeared to be underused, maybe even never used if Keith was to gather from comments that Shiro had made.

“I took all the culinary talent in the womb,” had been Shiro’s words on the phone one night when he and Keith had been putting the birthday dinner menu together. 

At the center of the kitchen sits a large island that is currently covered in bowls of various ingredients they need for putting the meal together. Shiro had taken it upon himself to get some of the prep out of the way earlier. Keith looks over the containers with opaque lids and cling film over them to appraise the ingredients as Shiro had also done all the shopping (with Ryou’s credit card, he had made sure to specify). All the vegetables look bright and fresh, and there are even some spices that appear to have been freshly ground by Shiro himself. Keith wonders how Shiro did that as he doubts that Ryou possesses a mortar and pestle.

“Does everything meet your standard?” Shiro chuckles with his arms crossed, watching Keith’s judgment of the ingredients.

Keith gives a dramatic sniff while leaning over the bowl of cooked quinoa. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“Then, shall we?” Shiro asks and holds up an apron to Keith.

“We shall,” Keith grins and holds his hand out to take the apron, but Shiro makes a sound of complaint before walking behind Keith.

“Arms out,” Shiro instructs, and Keith obeys without thinking twice. The apron gets placed over Keith’s head and then Shiro takes the strings to pull them around once and then twice to tie them neatly at Keith’s back. “There.”

Once Shiro steps away, Keith lets out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding in. Shiro hadn’t even touched Keith, but the mere presence of him at his back has left Keith feeling as though he was pulled into an embrace by the other chef. The soft graze of the apron over the tip of his nose, a whisper of a kiss. He shouldn’t feel swept away by having an apron put on him, yet, Keith is.

“So,” Keith’s voice cracks a little, and he swallows before speaking again. “Do I get to put yours on you, too?”

“Sure, it’ll be like ring toss or something for you,” Shiro jokes about their height difference. 

Keith spins on his heels to where Shiro stands a few feet away behind him. “Don’t make me change the menu to vegan mac and cheese instead.”

Shiro gasps in fake offense. “I told you that was my least favorite vegan dish in confidence, how could you?”

“Then you know what you have to let me do,” Keith raises an eyebrow. 

Shiro relents and holds out the apron in his hand, and Keith swiftly steps over to take it and continues on to stand behind Shiro. Maybe this was a mistake, Keith muses, as he finds himself staring at the very nicely defined back that Shiro happens to possess. He had shed the flannel shirt he had been wearing, leaving him in a well-fitting henley that leaves little to be imagined with how clearly defined the slopes of muscles on his back look from this angle.

“You okay back there?” Shiro laughs with a nervous edge.

“Yes,” Keith quickly snaps back, and he brings the apron up to Shiro’s head and places it on him. The apron sits differently on Shiro’s body than it does on Keith due to their difference in size, so it only needs to loop around once before Keith ties a careful knot and bow at the back. Then, without thinking, he gently pats Shiro’s back where the tied strings now sit. “There, all done. Was that so bad?”

“No, it was good, very good,” Shiro breathes out. There’s tension in his voice, which makes Keith sway on his feet, suddenly weighted by the fact that the simple act also affected Shiro.

“Great, then, well, let’s get cooking,” Keith once again claps his hands together hoping that the sounds will jolt them back to the matter at hand. 

“Hell yeah,” Shiro grins at Keith and goes to the fridge to retrieve a package of tofu. 

The first things up for them to work on are Shiro making his (apparently) signature green chile bean soup, a recipe he claims he spent his time in New Mexico perfecting. Meanwhile, Keith takes up the bowl of quinoa that he evaluated earlier along with some beans to start work on vegan meatballs.

Ryou’s kitchen has enough room that Shiro and Keith are able to space out enough to start their respective parts of the meal. The sounds of Shiro opening tofu packages to carefully slice them into precise squares and chopping onions, garlic, and jalapenos serves as the background sound to Keith’s work of creating a blend of spices and vegetables with the beans that he’ll be placing into a food processor shortly.

Shiro’s ingredients hit the pan in a pleasant sizzle of oil right when Keith turns on the food processor, and the kitchen fills with noisier sounds of cooking. Keith loves it. It makes the space feel alive, sputtering as it comes to life at the hands of the chefs. When Shiro adds spices and miso paste to the pan, the entire feeling of the space shifts as brilliant new aromas surround them. Keith finishes combining everything for the meatballs in the processor and moves on to start forming them in precise balls and placing them in near lines on a baking sheet. 

“Did you pre-heat the oven?” Keith asks over his shoulder, raising his voice so Shiro can hear him over the sound of the vent above the stove.

“Yeah, it should be hitting 350 for us in a bit,” Shiro replies.

Keith nods to himself, knowing Shiro can’t see and gets back to work. Once the meatballs are formed, he places the baking sheet in the fridge to allow them to set. At the same time, Shiro seems to be done with most of the soup assembly and goes over to where several spaghetti squash are sitting, ready to be split in half and covered with oil to bake.

“Do you need to soften them?” Keith asks as Shiro picks up the first one and holds a large cleaver in the other hand.

“No,” Shiro smirks, and then he doesn’t say anything else as he easily cuts the squash in half. Keith’s jaw definitely falls open a little bit. Cutting through a spaghetti squash like it’s butter should not be attractive, but Keith is fairly sure that right now, it’s the hottest thing he’s seen in his life. Keith continues to stand there, mesmerized watching as he sees muscles ripple across Shiro’s upper body as he once again cuts another squash. He looks up at Keith knowingly. “Are you going to stand there or are you going to cook?” Shiro raises an eyebrow.

“Cook,” Keith answers but doesn’t even process his own words.

“Are you?” Shiro presses. 

Keith finally snaps back from the recesses of his lizard brain hoping to become a spaghetti squash. “Right, yes,” he says and pulls himself away from the sight of Shiro with the squash, yet the clean sound of the knife cutting through and hitting the board underneath continues behind him tauntingly. 

Pivoting to clean out the food processor so he can make some chimichurri sauce instead, Keith takes a few breaths and reminds himself that he’s here to help celebrate Shiro and his brother’s birthday, not to thirst after the other man. Shiro’s parents are just beyond that hallway. They don’t want to see a breakfast sandwich food truck owner openly drooling not over the food he made but their son. 

Get it together, Keith.

And with that internal pep talk, Keith does indeed gather the ingredients for the sauce from the fridge and the counter, making sure to not let his eyes travel over to where Shiro is likely now prepping the squash on more baking sheets. Still, though, he feels Shiro’s eyes on him, almost mocking because they absolutely know what Keith is attempting to avoid. 

Eventually, the two of them fall into an easy dance in the kitchen. Keith finishes the sauce and preps the brussel sprouts that it will adorn. Shiro finishes up the soup while the spaghetti squash begins to bake in the oven. Keith moves on to make the marinara sauce and filling for the squash as Shiro pulls out the vegan pastry he had prepared earlier for the rainbow carrot and beetroot pie they’ll both be making together. Working in a kitchen with Shiro feels easy, familiar, as though they needed no time at all to get used to how each other cooks and moves about the space, even though it’s not one either of them is used to.

Keith’s mind wanders as he starts to thinly slice carrots for the pie, imagining what it would be like if the two of them always did this. What if Shiro and Keith always cooked together—in a food truck, in a restaurant, in Keith’s little kitchen at his house. The idea of the last scenario settles something deep in Keith’s heart, and he realizes it’s an aching want. He wants Shiro to start filling up all the spaces in his life.

Caught up in his thoughts, Keith misses Shiro siding up to him at the counter with carrot and knife in hand. Keith has the purple carrots under his care while Shiro has the standard orange ones. They will be splitting beetroot slicing duties. 

"I think everything is on track, right?" Shiro checks for affirmation on his assessment of their menu's progress. 

Keith hums, mentally checking through everything they have done so far and what's left to do. "Yeah, I think so. The soup should be done soon, right?"

"Yeah," Shiro nods as he finishes the first carrot. "Then it'll just sit and warm while we get the squash, sprouts, and this pie together. My parents picked up the cake earlier, so that's in the fridge along with your cupcakes."

"Perfect," Keith replies and grabs the next carrot. 

A few minutes pass in comfortable silence before Shiro speaks again. "We work well in a kitchen together."

Keith chuckles, "You think so?"

"Yeah, I mean look at us," Shiro gestures to the kitchen around them, filled with the smells and sight of cooking. He uses his hand not holding a knife because Shiro happens to be a responsible chef as well.

Keith nods. "True, we've done well so far."

"Just so far?" Shiro asks.

"We won't really know until everyone tries the food."

"But we know it'll be good."

The confidence that seems to selectively ooze from Shiro makes Keith snort. "You're really sure of yourself."

"There is one time I am always convinced what I've done is going to be absolutely on point, and that's when I cook," Shiro declares with that same positive attitude. 

"I guess that's the same for me," Keith muses out loud. "I know, if nothing else, I can always put a warm bowl of something that tastes amazing in front of a loved one or a person in need."

"And that can do absolute wonders," Shiro replies. 

"It can," Keith completes slicing the last of his carrots, and he doesn't realize that Shiro has as well until they've both reached for the same beet at the exact same time, their hands brushing. Somewhere in the back of Keith's mind, he whines that he should never have some type of chaste Regency-era encounter with the object of his affections, and, yet, here is his, pulling back his hand and apologizing.

Shiro picks up the beet and holds it out to Keith. "It's all yours." Keith rolls his eyes and takes it roughly from Shiro's hand. "What did the poor beet do to you."

It tried to make me have some type of bad rom-com moment, that's what, Keith says to himself. "Nothing, nothing at all," he instead airily out loud. 

From there, Shiro and Keith lapse back into their comfortable dance around the kitchen, moving past each other as if perfectly choreographed to assemble the rest of the dinner. Finally, everything is together. The spaghetti squash has been baked perfectly and its sauce is the perfect blend of tangy and spicy. The brussel sprouts have a satisfying crunch to them still after their time in the oven along with a kick from the chimichurri sauce they're covered in. Most pristine of all is the carrot and beet pie with the slices of root vegetables arranged in clean lines in the pastry creating a colorful striation across the top where they were settled into a tofu and miso mix. But first, Shiro's signature soup has been plated into bowls that he and Keith are about to take out to serve for dinner. 

"Everyone should be ready, right?" Keith checks with Shiro, who had told his brother to get everyone to the dining table.

"If Ryou is to be relied upon, though rare, yeah, it's food, he'll have gotten everyone in there," Shiro assures. "Ready?"

"Ready," Keith nods.

They carry the first of the bowls out and are met with exclamations of excitement from the family and friends seated around the dining table of Ryou's home. 

"It smells amazing, Takashi," Shiro's mother compliments as he places a bowl in front of her, and he beams.

"Looks good, too," Ryou comments when Keith puts his bowl down.

Shiro and Keith hurry to get everyone their food before getting their own bowls and sitting across from each other at the table.

"Everyone good?" Shiro asks once they're seated, and he's met with a chorus of yes. "Well, then, itadakimasu!"

And with that, everybody digs in.

After the first spoonful, Keith is already convinced that maybe Shiro really is onto something with calling the green chile bean soup his signature soup because it's amazing. Whatever research and work he did on it in New Mexico was worth it because it manages to both fill him with a comforting warmth like a blanket on a cold winter's day but at the same time there's a lingering spice that wakes you up just the right amount. It's amazing. 

When Keith looks up to catch a glimpse of Shiro, Shiro is already looking back at him, a glint in his eyes that says I know.

---

The rest of their dinner passes by in high spirits. With each dish, Shiro and Keith receive a barrage of compliments on how incredible everything both looks and tastes. Ryou even doesn't feel offended that it's his birthday as well and he has no praise tossed his way. Eventually, wine gets brought out, and everyone's mood manages to rise to a new level of jubilation. Good food and good drink can truly work magic, Keith thinks. 

When everything is done, Keith is surprised when Ryou insists on doing the dishes and Matt declares that he'll help. Everyone tells Shiro and Keith to go out and take a break, which they both are reluctant to agree to until Shiro's father all but pushes them out to the backyard deck. 

"You need some air after all that cooking!" he admonishes them.

Shiro grabs a bottle of wine on the way out, which receives a look from his mother, but she doesn’t say anything. Passing by the ample seating options on the deck, Shiro goes to the ledge and sits and sticks his legs through the gap between the rail and the deck's floor so they dangle down.

"That seems unsafe," Keith comments as he sits next to Shiro and does the exact same thing. Shiro takes a swig of wine from the bottle and passes it to Keith. This is probably the least dignified way to drink wine, but, oh well, so Keith takes a drink.

"It reminds me of being a kid and doing this with Ryou at our house," Shiro tells Keith. "My parents moved to a smaller house a few years ago, so they don't have that deck anymore, but Ryou's got this, and it'll have to do."

"It is nice," Keith comments and stares down at how their legs sway. "So, was the birthday a success?" 

"Oh, definitely," Shiro grins. "The meal was perfect, we really made a killer menu."

"We did," Keith can't help but return the smile. 

"And we cook really well together," Shiro adds. 

"I have to admit we do," Keith agrees.

"Thanks for doing this with me," Shiro says. "I know it was kind of abrupt to throw you into my life by having you here for this and making you cook on top of everything, but it meant a lot. Thank you, Keith." The wine bottle passes between them.

"It's not a big deal," Keith blushes. "It was fun, and it was cool to meet everyone."

"Even my parents?" Shiro asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Especially your parents," Keith laughs. "Do you think your mom really will give me your family miso soup recipe?"

Shiro playfully shoves Keith. "Ugh, this is not the order we are supposed to do things."

"What order?" Keith asks.

"Nothing," Shiro coughs and quickly changes the subject. "Anyway, I was thinking about something and wanted to ask you about it."

“Sure,” Keith takes the bottle from Shiro and tosses his head back to drink.

“I think I should drop the competition,” Shiro says.

Keith pauses. “Why?”

“Because I wasn’t even trying to be in it in the first place,” Shiro starts to explain. “It just doesn’t seem fair.”

Keith blames the wine for what he says back to Shiro. “Oh, you think you’re so good and going to win the whole thing, huh?” Keith takes a pull from the wine bottle. “Shiro and Bean Me Up are just the best food truck in all of Garrison and us little guys aren’t going to be able to beat you?”

Shiro pries the bottle from Keith, who poorly attempts to keep it clutched in his hand. “That’s not what I mean at all,” Shiro tells him with a roll of eyes and a grin. “I mean I think I don’t want there to be a chance to even be considered for winning. I don’t want to be in the running. Every food truck deserves it more than me, and it just seems...unfair.” 

“Listen, Shirogane,” Keith points his finger at Shiro. “You are an incredible chef and a fine food truck owner, in more ways than one might I add, and it wouldn’t be a true competition of the best trucks in Garrison if you weren’t there, too. Also, I want you there, okay, so no running away.”

“In more ways than one?” Shiro asks.

“What?”

“You said I was a fine food truck owner in more ways than one, what are the ways?” Shiro implores.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and Keith sways closer to Shiro. Their faces seem awfully close.

“I don’t accept that answer at all,” Shiro shakes his head slowly. “How about this, you tell me all the ways you think I’m fine, and then I stay in the competition?”

“That’s bullshit,” Keith narrows his eyes. 

“I think it’s perfect,” Shiro smirks. Keith wants to kiss that damn look off his face.

“Fine,” Keith huffs. “You care about your food and how you make it. You genuinely consider the ingredients in what you cook. You’ve only been in Garrison for a short while, and I don’t know how long you plan on staying before setting back out on your cross-country adventures but you’ve already flawlessly become part of the food truck scene here because you also care about it. You care about the other chefs.”

“And?” Shiro presses.

“Was that not enough?”

“I think there’s something else,” Shiro leans in, and it would be so easy to make that space between them disappear. Keith hears the soft thud of Shiro putting the bottle on the floor of the deck, and then he uses his newly freed hand to gently cup the side of Keith’s face. “What else?”

Keith exhales. “You’re—”

The sound of the door opening behind them jolts Shiro and Keith out of their reverie, and they both turn to see Ryou standing with one foot in mid-step to come out to the deck, staring at them with wide eyes. “Oh, shit, um—” and then he moves back inside and slams the door shut behind him.

Shiro sighs. “Yeah, of course he would.” His hand falls away from Keith’s face and he closes his eyes, raising his head up towards the sky. “Of course.” Shiro then lies down on the deck, legs still dangling off the edge. It’s a clear night, and the moonlight makes his white hair glow. 

“Um,” Keith offers uselessly.

“Don’t worry,” Shiro says, eyes still closed. “I’ll be there. I’ll be at the competition.”

“You better,” Keith tells him, and then he lies down on the deck as well next to Shiro. Their hands sit on the wood, close. Keith’s fingers twitch.

---

On the morning of the competition, Keith goes through the motions of his morning routine, but when he arrives at the commissary, Pidge and Lance are already waiting for him. The trio—well, Keith and Pidge with Lance standing to the side documenting them with his phone—prep for the day with everything they’ll be needing to get through the day. Once they have the truck packed up, Keith triple-checks everything before getting them on their way to Garrison Center Park. 

“How are you feeling?” Pidge asks as they turn the corner to the part of the park where the contest is being held. There are already a few of the contestant trucks parked around the area they’re supposed to set up by, and Keith’s eyes immediately fall upon Shiro’s truck standing there with its bold lettering. 

“What are they doing?” Lance asks loudly and tries to squish against a window to look outside.

Keith chances a quick turn of his head, knowing Lance tends to be dramatic and make something out of nothing, but what he sees does indeed make Keith question what is going on. At a pavilion away from the main competition area, Shiro stands talking to someone, and that someone happens to be the one and only Chef Honerva. 

“Whatever, it’s no big deal,” Keith shrugs as he maneuvers the truck. “Just some pre-competition talk between them, probably.”

“But why?” Lance pushes. “Why is Shiro talking to Honerva so off to the side from everyone else? Seems sus.”

Pidge blessedly brings her logic to the conversation. “Bean Me Up won the write-in vote, which meant Shiro’s name wasn’t tied to the entry like the other trucks who were entered. Honverva probably wanted to talk to the mystery chef behind it.”

This seems to be enough to calm Lance down for now and he eases back from his ready-to-fight demeanor. “Sure, I guess,” he scoffs.

Keith finishes parking the truck to where they were directed. “Great, now that’s sorted, want to actually help get ready for this?” he turns to Lance and Pidge.

“Hell yeah!” they yell together and throw their fists into the air. 

“Hell yeah,” Keith repeats back.

For the next hour, Keith loses himself in the process of getting everything ready by the designated start time, and he’s even pleasantly surprised when Lance lends an honestly helpful hand. Maybe Keith’s does have a serious shot of winning today if bizarre and unlikely events are already starting to unfold before his very eyes. 

The three manage to finish up with some time to spare, and Keith decides to take the short free time before things heat up to take a little walk around in the park to clear his head and get into the mental space of “pretend it’s not a competition and you’re just cooking for your usual customers.” He’s made it a few feet into the walk when he hears his name, and he turns to see Shiro jogging slightly to catch up to him.

“Hey,” Keith can’t help but let his face break into a wide smile at the sight of the other chef. “I’m happy to see you here.”

“I told you I would be, right?” Shiro gives his usual smirk.

“You did, thank you,” Keith concedes. “Walk with me?”

“Of course,” Shiro nods and proceeds in step with Keith as they make their way along a short, looping trail.

“How are you feeling today?” Keith asks. 

“Honestly, a little nervous when I first got here,” Shiro admits.

“And now?” 

“Better,” Shiro sighs. “You?”

“About the same,” Keith answers honestly. They walk close enough that their hands brush a hair’s width apart as their arms sway. It would be so easy to clutch onto the other, but they don’t. “I have a question, though.”

“Shoot,” Shiro kicks a rock in the path and they watch it skitter away into the dirt.

“Why were you talking to Honerva earlier off to the side?” Keith musters the courage to ask, and he says the words to his feet, looking down.

Shiro sighs heavily. “You saw that, huh?”

“Actually, Lance did, and because he pointed you two out I saw,” Keith tells the truth.

“You deserve to know the truth, then, Keith,” Shiro’s voice feels heavy, and the statement makes Keith’s heartbeat speed up. The truth about what?

“Okay,” Keith answers with hesitance. “What is it?”

“I should have told you on the day you took me out to the trucks in Garrison, or I should have told you when we were on Ryou’s deck, but well…” Shiro trails off.

Keith grabs Shiro’s hand, and they both stop walking abruptly. Shiro looks down at their joined hands in shock while Keith’s eyes lock onto Shiro’s face with determination. “You can tell me anything, and I will never judge you.”

After a few seconds, Shiro lets out a slow breath. “Okay, well, before I left Garrison, I was actually getting ready to open a restaurant in town with Honerva.”

“With Honerva?” Keith cannot suppress the startled question from his mouth.

“Yeah,” Shiro nods. “She was kind of, well, I guess a mentor in a way, along with Iverson. Honerva took a real liking to me when I worked at a few of her restaurants, and she wanted me to partner with her on a place here. I was all for it, especially since I was young and going to be owning a restaurant with such a prominent chef...but...that feeling changed the more I thought about it, the more I felt stifled, you know? I was in my early 20’s and going to tie myself down to a restaurant in my hometown. I still had more I wanted to do, so I got cold feet, basically, and then left. Just packed up and left Garrison, and that was the start of my little culinary cross-country jaunt that I picked my truck up along the way. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Honerva since.”

Keith takes a moment to process the story, and Shiro’s antsy feelings about the competition make more sense now. “You didn’t want to be in the competition because you were afraid to see Honerva again,” the realization dawns on Keith.

Shiro nods. “Exactly, and I should have told you all this when you asked me why I didn’t want to be in it on my birthday.”

“But you spoke to her?” Keith asks, head cocking to the side.

“Yes,” Shiro nods. “I got here early to talk to her. She was shocked to see that I was the one who ran the write-in truck, but we had a good conversation. Honerva understood my side of things, and I apologized for leaving her high and dry like I did. Maybe I can blame youth a bit,” Shiro laughs. “But, yeah, we worked it all out, and she’s happy for me.”

“She is?” Keith raises his eyebrows. 

“Yeah,” Shiro answers and then nods down to where the two are still holding hands. “I’m happy, too.”

Keith blushes to a shade he’s pretty sure appears on the side of his red food truck. “Oh, well, good. Me, too.”

“Yeah?” Shiro says again and takes a step forward. This is familiar, standing this close to Shiro where all it takes is one of them to make the leap. “I also think I’ve finally found a reason to stay in Garrison.” Keith sucks in a gasp at the admission.

But, also, as usual, they hear the sound of pounding footsteps and look over at the source. Pidge is running towards them. 

“Is everything okay?” Keith yells at her, worried something has gone wrong on the truck.

Pidge gets to them and finally speaks, slightly out of breath. “They’re here! They came to surprise you!”

“Who?” Keith asks, confused, but then she points excitedly in the direction she came bounding from. 

Keith’s parents are standing there, looking as proud as ever even though he hasn’t even started in the competition yet, and they wave over at him.

“Are those your parents?” Shiro asks, and Keith nods, a little astounded to see that they drove all the way out here to surprise him like this. “You look like them,” Shiro adds. 

Keith tugs on Shiro’s hand. “Come on, you’re meeting them.”

“What?” Keith takes deep satisfaction in the slightly raised octave of Shiro’s voice.

“I met your parents, time to meet mine!” Keith laughs and drags Shiro hurriedly over to where his parents are standing.

He goes through the process of introducing Shiro to his parents, and Keith’s mom gives him a very pointed look that says she very much realizes this is the food truck man she told Keith she could get rid of via city connections. At the same time, Keith’s parents look at where Shiro and Keith are holding hands and maintain pleased smiles. 

Once it gets closer to competition time, Keith and Shiro say their farewells, and Keith’s parents go over to where Shiro’s parents and brother are sitting at a picnic table. Shiro told Keith’s mom and dad that his family would be more than happy to have them join. 

When they were far enough away, Keith groaned. “I can’t believe you’re letting our parents hang out already.”

“Well, it’s best for them to get used to it now,” Shiro gives an exaggerated shrug with both his hands' palms up.

“Is it now?” Keith snorts.

“Very,” Shiro replies, voice gravely serious, which makes Keith want to push this wonderful man against his food truck and kiss him something silly.

Tragically, before he can do that, Honerva’s assistant, Lotor, announces that they will be starting in 10 minutes, so the food trucks should get ready to open for the competition. 

“Looks like we have to go now,” Keith tells Shiro. “See you after?”

“Oh, you definitely will, baby,” Shiro’s smile is the slow pour of honey on a biscuit during a lazy Sunday breakfast.

---

The competition is being held on a Saturday afternoon in the most popular park in Garrison, and for most of the three hours of the contest, the food trucks simply serve the people of the city who pass through to try the food and enjoy a day outdoors. The Garrison locals also have the opportunity to vote for which truck they enjoy most for a Garrison Fan Favorite Award that will be given out along with Honerva crowning a winner. 

This first part of the competition Keith knows, he’s familiar and comfortable with the task of making food and serving it to the people in the city who kindly come to the window of his truck to get something to eat. Food can go a long way for a person, Keith knows. He wants to believe a fantastic sandwich has the ability to turn a day just a little bit around. So, Keith, with Pidge at his side and Lance attempting to help in between Instagram Story posting, dances his way around the inside of the truck, sizzling bacon and eggs along with his own blend of black bean patties and spicy hash browns. 

Most people Keith knows have mentioned that he doesn’t seem to smile often, but when he does, it’s always genuine. The sides of his mouth tug up, unable to stop themselves from conveying the joy he feels. One of the times this happens is when he hands a customer a sandwich, cooked fresh for them by his own hands (okay, sometimes by Pidge), but the act of that handoff uplifts Keith. 

Keith also knows that he smiles a damn lot around Shiro.

After getting lost in the flow of making sandwiches and serving customers, Keith’s eyes widen as he assembles a vegan sandwich and the announcement is made that in 15 minutes, the trucks will stop serving for the attendees of the competition and focus on assembling a sample of food for Chef Honerva to come around and try.

“How are you feeling?” Lance asks as he helps wrap sandwiches. He has a surprisingly good hand at neatly getting the paper crisply and primly around the food. 

“I’m okay,” Keith replies. He doesn’t really have time to dwell on the fact the real part of the competition is about to happen as it seems they will be pushing out orders until the last second.

“Well, we’ve definitely been popular,” PIdge comments as she lays cheese slices down on sizzling sausage patties. 

“True,” Keith concedes, and he has that to thank for the fact it’s kept him from getting caught up contemplating how one of his favorite chefs will try his food soon.

The last 15 minutes breeze past and Keith maybe lays it on a bit thick as he hands the last order over to the family of four who placed it, thanking them profusely for their patronage to his humble truck.

Lance snorts as they walk away. “I have never seen you so gracious before.”

“They could have voted for us! You never know!” Keith argues. “Besides, I’m always thankful for our customers.

The announcer informs them that the trucks now have a half-hour to prepare the foods that they will be serving to Honerva. Keith knows it sounds like a short time, but he also believes it’s Honerva pushing the competitors to do their best work in a frankly generous amount of time for a food truck order. During these 30 minutes, the contestants are expected to make the most exemplary items from their menu. This is where Keith feels just the slightest bit nervous as he’s going a bit rogue.

“Good luck, guys!” Lance takes off his apron. He’s leaving the final vital part of the competition to Keith and Pidge given he isn’t truly an employee at the truck, and he doesn’t want to be in their way. 

“See you on the other side,” Keith nods as Lance claps his shoulder. 

“You got this,” he reassures before walking towards the picnic table where all their friends and family are now sitting and standing around.

“You’re still good with your plan, right?” Pidge inquires, cleaning her glasses on the microfiber cloth she keeps in her back pocket. It’s as if she knew Keith was seconds away from slipping into a crisis over his serving menu choice. 

“Yes,” Keith nods firmly, affirming both her and himself that, yes, this is what they’ll be going forward with. 

The plan first includes three of the sandwiches from the truck—the brie, bacon and avocado, the vegan pesto, and the vegetarian spicy bean. With the sandwiches, they will also prepare the spiced hash browns as a side. Finally, Keith decided to take a bit of a leap of faith. He’s going to also make one dish he’s put thought into and developed for if he were to ever open a restaurant. 

Two of the sandwiches and the hash browns are in Pidge’s hands, but Keith will work on his dish along with the vegan sandwich.

Keith springs into action immediately, reaching for the ingredients he needs to make the brie, bacon, and avocado sandwich first as it’s something he can probably put together in his sleep at this point. The process goes quickly. First, the bacon gets placed on the grill they use solely for meat preparation, then an egg is cracked so it starts to heat until it reaches the perfect consistency for the sandwich. While those are going, Keith grabs the brie and an avocado to slice up. The English muffin that this will all sit between gets cut in half and placed to toast as the final touch before assembly begins. A thin layer of butter and mayo goes on the slices of the toasted English muffin, and then the bacon gets placed down with the brie on top of it. The cheese immediately starts to get melty from the heat of the bacon, and Keith works fast to fan out the avocado slices on top before finishing up with the top of the muffin. That’s one down.

When Keith moves on to the vegan pesto sandwich, another menu item he can make with his eyes closed, Keith’s thoughts drift from the task at hand as he moves through the motions of cooking. Instead, Keith reminisces about the first time Shiro stopped by the truck and he made this for him. There had been no hesitations in Keith’s hands then, and there are not any now. His hands create carefully, thoughtfully, to make food that will be a joy for someone to eat. In a way, he’s taking care of the person who will eat this. In today’s case, it will be Honerva, usually, it’s his customers. But one time, it was Shiro. Keith hopes they’ll have more opportunities to cook for each other. 

Once the second sandwich is finished, Keith takes a deep breath since it’s time to move on to the dish he created himself. By no means were any of the parts of it revolutionary, but he thought they would go well together with the addition of his own touches. 

“How’re you doing? Keith checks in with Pidge before he gets to work on the final dish.

“Impeccable, Chef!” Pidge grins wide as she flips the hash browns. “You?”

“Getting to the main course,” Keith rubs his hands together.

“You got this,” Pidge playfully knocks shoulders with him, which is more her shoulder in his arm.

“Thanks, Pidge,” Keith rolls his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

Keith starts by pulling out a potato and slicing it just at the thickness where when he tosses them in a pan and they hit the grill, they will be crisp on the outside but soft inside. He gets them coated in a spicy blend that’s similar to the hash browns but toned down just a bit, and then he gets them cooking. With that, he turns to the eggs and pulls out a pot to get the water boiling and keeps an eye on it.

When Keith pulls out the ricotta, he suddenly feels a zip of apprehension through his body. Is he doing the right thing? Should he just present the usual truck food instead? The memory of Shiro just says ago telling Keith he wants to keep cooking with him and the blast they had creating the dinner menu together passes through his mind again. He has to keep pushing.

Spooning some ricotta into a small cup, Keith adds a few subtle herbs to it and gets it to the consistency he wants for it to be spreadable. The water at this point is boiling, so Keith can finally crack the eggs and plop them carefully into the pot after creating a little whirlpool to get to poaching. He watches the eggs like a hawk and pulls them out right at the moment they’ll be perfect and gets them cooling. Finally, he gets a thick slice of freshly baked multigrain bread ready. Keith’s forte has never been baking, so he settled for getting the loaf from one of Hunk’s bakeries in Garrison. After a thin layer of butter, it also gets settled onto the grill to get toasted. 

All the components are done or close to done, so Keith pulls out the crowning jewel on the dish. When Keith’s dad ran his restaurant in Garrison, he had developed a sauce he claimed would go with everything in the restaurant. It was called Tex’s and the recipe had stayed close to his dad’s heart until Keith moved back to Garrison, and his dad decided to share the recipe with him. Keith could never just simply use the original recipe himself, so, some days, he would just spend an hour or two in the kitchen trying to cook different batches of it, changed up until finally, he found the one he thought was just right. Keith pulls out the bottle with the sauce he made that morning at the commissary and prays to the culinary gods that it’ll be good enough.

At last, Keith starts the assembly. The potatoes get laid down on the plate first, atop a small bed of arugula, and then the poached eggs sit on top of the eggs. The ricotta spread gets generously placed on the now beautifully browned toast with a honey drizzle over it and a few extra sprigs of rosemary on top. Keith takes a breath before adding the final touch of the sauce on the eggs and slightly on the side of the plate as well. When he stands back to look at the plate, Keith feels satisfied. 

Keith and Pidge set their finished dishes on the serving counter of the truck and exhale. They’re done. At least with the cooking, they’re done, and now all that’s left is for Chef Honerva to come around and try everyone’s food.

“How do you feel?” Pidge asks, wiping her brow with a paper towel.

“I kind of want to throw up I think?” Keith admits.

“Not on the food, please,” Pidge hands him a piece of the paper they wrap sandwiches in.

“What’s this for?” Keith stares at the offered paper.

“It’s the closest we have to a paper bag for you to throw up in,” Pidge informs him, deadpan.

“Shut up, I don’t need this,” Keith pushes Pidge’s hand away as she cackles.

Time eventually gets called for the competitors to stop cooking and get their food ready to present, and Keith’s nerves once again shoot up from the relative calm he had been enjoying. When he looks across the area they’re parked in, Keith sees Shiro setting down his food as well. As if he could sense eyes on him, Shiro looks up and meets Keith’s gaze. For a suspended moment, the two simply stare at each other with half smiles before Shiro gives a thumbs-up that Keith returns. 

When Chef Honerva starts making her rounds to try all the trucks’ food, Keith starts to pace around in the small area of the truck, which drives Pidge out of her mind, so she grabs him and stands on one of his feet so Keith can’t move freely and be annoying to her anymore. He resents it. But Keith gets it.

Keith unconsciously leans forward when Honerva gets to Shiro’s truck as though he’ll be able to hear anything going on over there, but both chefs have smiles on their faces as Honerva tries his food. When she walks on to the next truck, Shiro looks over to Keith with that light-up-the-room smile, and Keith can’t help but beam back at him.

“Oh shit, oh hell, fuck,” Keith curses softly when Honerva finally starts walking over to his truck.

“Yes, definitely keep saying that,” Pidge shakes her head and steps off of Keith’s foot.

“Hello, Chef Keith,” Honerva greets him. “Please tell me a little about your truck.”

“Hi, Chef Honerva, it’s an honor to meet you, and I would like to introduce you to my second-in-command, Pidge,” Keith gestures to Pidge as she gives a nod of her head. “So, yeah, uh, well, I named my truck Keith’s because, well, it’s mine and I’m sharing my cooking. My dad used to run a restaurant in Garrison when I was a kid, and it’s where I learned everything about cooking and food service. But, most importantly, I think, I learned about how much a good meal can change a person’s day and make it better. I like breakfast foods because you can kind of have it at any time of the day, but if you have a really damn good breakfast to start the day? Well, you could be unstoppable. So, my family moved to the other side of the state, but I moved back to Garrison as soon as I could and got this truck.”

“That’s a very impassioned feeling about breakfast,” Honerva muses. “Most people skip it.”

“Not if they have one of my sandwiches,” Keith immediately regrets the slightly pompous words as soon as they’re out of his mouth. “I mean—”

“No, no,” Honverva laughs, and it’s surprisingly melodic. “I like to see that type of confidence. Now, what do you have for me?”

Keith and Pidge tell her about each of the three sandwiches as she tries them, and then she reaches the plate.

“So, finally, this isn’t on our menu, but it’s something that I like making and maybe a look at what my cooking is all about, so I wanted to make it for you today as well,” Keith explains.

“Well, it looks amazing,” Honerva tells him, and the small compliment already makes Keith’s heart skip a beat. “Smells fantastic as well. What all am I looking at? Some eggs on crisped potatoes, a sauce...and toast with ricotta and honey?”

“Yes, basically, but all of it has my own personal spice and herb blends, and the sauce is my own recipe as well,” Keith watches as she takes the first bite. And then she takes another, and a few more, but remains perfectly quiet through the whole tasking.

Keith feels like he wants to yell at her to say something already, and she finally does. “Keith, I know you specialize in sandwiches here and adore your truck, but if you ever thought of branching out and opening a restaurant, this is fantastic,” Keith heads the words, and his body feels light as if he’s gliding on air. She, Chef Honerva, cannot be complimenting him? 

Pidge steps on his foot. Hard. “Oh, oh, thank you so much, wow, um, thanks,” Keith sputters out. 

Honerva chuckles. “There’s something fresh about this combination but at the same time, it feels comforting and homey. And this sauce? Out of this world. You’re really onto something here, Keith. Thank you.”

“Oh, no, thank you,” Keith manages to push the words out as she hands him back the plate. 

And with that, she moves on to the next truck.

---

By the time Honerva finishes her tasting of the trucks’ foods and completes her deliberation on the winner, the sun has slipped behind the trees of the park and fairy lights decorating the area for the event turn on to illuminate the awards ceremony. Keith and Pidge had joined the table of their family and friends, and Shiro had been there, too.

“How do you feel?” Shiro had whispered into his ear, and Keith wanted to just climb into his lap and hug him forever to release all the remaining tension.

“Tense as hell,” Keith had told him instead. 

“Maybe I can help with that later?” Shiro smirked, and Keith panicked and looked over at their parents just inches away. Thankfully their parents were in a heated discussion about the best marzipan they’ve ever had.

But now, all the truck owners were called to the little makeshift stage at the center of the competition area where all the trucks were parked for Honerva to present the winner of the Garrison Fan Favorite, who would receive a pleasant $10,000, and then the grand prize winner of the whole thing who’d be walking away with $100,000.

Keith and Shiro stand next to each other just behind Honerva, and Keith forces himself to just unfocus a little bit while looking at the back of her head otherwise he might scream from the nerves he feels over waiting for the announcement. The competition was tough. Keith knows all the other trucks who took part, and they’re all incredible and equally deserve to win. Expecting nothing is something Keith feels used to, so he’s trying to quell any feelings of what if.

“Thank you all for coming to the Garrison Food Truck Competition. It’s been a great day in a beautiful city with delicious food. And without further ado, let me start with the first award, which is the Garrison Fan Favorite that was voted on by you, the people of Garrison, on which of these trucks you tried today had the food you enjoyed most,” Honerva then pauses as an assistant hands her en envelope. “And the winner is...Bean Me Up and Chef Takashi Shirogane.”

“Oh,” Keith hears Shiro breathe out in surprise right before the applause starts, and when Shiro doesn’t move, Keith shoves him a little to bring him back to the moment. Shiro looks around dazed before taking steps forward to accept the award from Honerva, which comes in the form of a comically large check.

“Hell yeah! I’m proud of you!” Keith claps excitedly as Shiro takes his spot next to Keith again, and Keith chuckles slightly seeing that, as usual, Shiro’s ears give him away by blushing at the tips. “See, you made vegan food popular.”

“I guess I did,” Shiro laughs, surprised at his success. He deserves it so much, though.

When the cheers calm down, Honerva speaks again. “Now, today, I had the privilege of trying the food from some of the best chef’s in Garrison, but one of them impressed me particularly with the way they took familiar food and elevated it or brought it together in new ways. Talking to them also made it clear to me that they care not only about the food they make but also the people they make it for. I think they have an incredibly bright future in the culinary world ahead of them. So, the winner of the Garrison Food Truck Competition is...Keith’s and Chef Keith Kogane!”

Keith automatically starts clapping and looking around for the winner to present themselves, but then pauses when he realizes it’s him. He did it. He won. 

“You won!” Shiro cries and turns to Keith, that damn brighter than the sun smile wide across his face. His arms move like they want to go around Keith, but then Shiro pulls back and starts clapping instead. “Go!” 

Keith takes the shaky steps up to Honerva and thanks her while taking his own comically large check with the prize money amount written on it. Gosh, that’s a lot of zeros. He looks out over the small crowd of people who are gathered there for the award and sees his dad hugging his mom tightly, and his mom wipes a tear from her eye before yelling a that’s my baby! that cuts over the sound of everyone’s cheers. It makes people burst into laughter and Keith blush. He loves his family. Next to them, Shiro’s parents are clapping as excitedly as his own. Lance is behind them looking like he’s going to cry himself while Pidge keeps jumping up and down. 

Keith has always known he was loved, be it by his parents or his uncles or friends. He’s always been surrounded by support and care, and then he’s tried to transfer that into his cooking. But right now, with all these people in his life in front of him and people cheering for his food, well, Keith feels more loved than he has before, he’s pretty sure.

And when Keith turns around and looks at Shiro standing there, a tender smile only for Keith on his face as he continues to smile, Keith knows there’s still so much love for him to experience.

---

SIX MONTHS LATER

“Hey, can I get a table?” Lance asks Keith over the phone. “I have a date with Allura tonight.”

Keith looks over the restaurant and sees all the tables are full. “We’re packed, and I don’t know if we have any open reservations,” Keith tells him while balancing the phone between his ear and shoulder and plating a side order of hash browns into a small bowl.

“You don’t, I already called the front,” Lance tells him. “I was hoping you’d help a friend out.”

“If Nadia said we don’t have a table then we don’t, I can’t make one magically appear,” Keith rolls his eyes even though Lance won’t see it.

“But it’s your restaurant!” Lance yells through the receiver. Keith winces at the tinny sound. 

“Still doesn’t mean I can just put you in place of another customer who’s been waiting,” Keith explains through gritted teeth. He has more to do than help Lance land a date spot.

“Ugh, I’m going to call Shiro instead,” Lance then hangs up without another word. 

“Yeah, sure, call Shiro,” Keith tells the dial-tone. 

“Who’s calling me?” Shiro asks as he walks into the restaurant’s kitchen. 

“Lance, he’s trying to get a table tonight for him and Allura.”

“But it’s a Saturday night.”

“I know,” Keith sighs wistfully.

After winning the Garrison Food Truck Competition, Keith made the leap with his winnings and bought the building that had once housed his dad’s restaurant, much to the surprise of his parents. They hadn’t realized how much he had his eye on the space. With their help and his new boyfriend, Shiro, Keith had gotten the wheels moving on getting the place redone and updated so it could finally become a proper restaurant. His restaurant.

Six months later, it’s one of the most popular spots in Garrison, and usually, the food truck, which is now in Pidge’s care full-time, can be found parked outside on the weekend evenings for those who want a quick bite rather than coming inside for a sit-down meal.

“You could put them at the table with our parents?” Shiro offers. 

“God, no,” Keith shakes his head. His parents are visiting for the weekend, so naturally, they decided to come to the restaurant with Shiro’s parents and make comments about what a handsome and beautiful couple their sons make while dropping marriage hints. Keith is shocked at how those make him flush but also put a swoop in his stomach. Their parents are the only people allowed a table at the restaurant any time they want, cutting the waitlist.

“True, he hasn’t earned it yet,” Shiro agrees. “Hey, take a break with me?”

“Sure,” Keith throws the dishtowel he just wiped his hands on over his shoulder and tells the kitchen staff he’ll be back in five. They respond with a chorus of yes chef!

There’s a small office in the corner of the restaurant past the kitchen where Keith does all the managerial and behind-the-scenes work, and it includes a small loveseat smashed into the corner because maybe sometimes Keith works too hard and just needs to lay down for a few minutes. Shiro sits down on the small couch, and instead of sitting next to him, Keith climbs onto Shiro’s lap. 

Shiro chuckles lowly. “Tired, baby?”

“Yeah, but this is nice,” Keith sighs as Shiro wraps his arms around him and starts running his hands up and down his back. Keith nuzzles his face into Shiro’s neck and breathes in the scene he’s grown to adore over the last few months that’s the lavender soap that Shiro tends to use mixed with the subtle smell of just Shiro. It’s perfect. Shiro is perfect. 

“I’ll make it even nicer when we get back to your place,” Shiro’s hands slide down to gently squeeze at Keith’s side with intent to emphasize his words. 

“Mmm, I know you will,” Keith pulls back from Shiro’s neck and looks down at him. Shiro’s eyes burn hotter than any fire in the kitchen on the other side of the door. He feels lucky to have this man who shares his passion for cooking and also, above all, cares and loves Keith. 

“I love you,” Keith murmurs, and he drops his forehead to rest against Shiro’s. 

“Love you, too,” Shiro replies. It’s not the first time they’ve said it to each other, but it doesn’t make each time they exchange the words any less impactful. Whether they’re simply saying it over the phone, or in the morning as they leave for work, or when they’re in bed and Shiro’s inside him, Keith always has a moment where he can’t breathe because it feels like each syllable from Shiro’s mouth is wrapping around Keith. And then the words let go, and Keith breathes out, fresh air and love surrounding him.

Hands rough from work in a kitchen come up to hold Keith’s face, and he lets his eyes fall closed as the distance between them closes. This is another thing that’s happened hundreds, maybe thousands of times by now, but there’s one thing Keith knows about when Shiro kisses him. The second their lips touch and mouths part to lick against each other, Shiro’s breath against his mouth and a sigh of his name will always be the greatest thing Keith will ever taste and what he wants for the rest of his life.