Chapter Text
Prologue: Who is in the black?
For a while, it was just a cat.
A very understanding cat.
The cat appeared soon after Shiro was kept in the astral plane. He had known that he couldn’t live long, but the knowledge didn’t stop him from weeping unceasingly about his isolation from the entire world. Especially so when he saw Keith collapse in Black’s cockpit not knowing Shiro was right beside him. Tears surged out of his eyes like a loose faucet. They rushed down his cheeks, threatening to flood the floor.
But they failed, wiped out by a tongue.
Shiro turned his head. A black cat appeared on his shoulder, glowing iridescently like a black pearl. Her white tail gently curled around his neck, like she was protecting him.
“Hi, kitty. Where are you coming from?” Shiro greeted the cat amicably. He never knew Black had a pet.
The cat scooched closer, put two cotton-like paws on his cheeks, gave Shiro a headbutt, and held his gaze. Instantly, half of his burden turned into thin air.
The presence of the cat soon became constant. Sometimes the cat would find herself a ball. Sometimes the cat would bring Shiro a feather wand. Sometimes the cat would groom his hair. Sometimes the cat would sleep beside him, showing off her creamy belly. Gradually, not only did Shiro develop a habit of patting and cuddling the cat, but he also began to tell the cat how he had been feeling. The cat was an amazing listener. She would be watching him with openness, once in a while replying with an acknowledging meow.
One day, the cat became more than a cat.
It happened after Keith successfully led Team Voltron out of Lotor’s trickery. Keith finally accepted himself as the leader Shiro had always seen in him. Shiro was overfilled with pride.
He was until a voice interrupted him. “He’s charming. Huh?”
Beside him was no one but a cat. And the cat was smirking! He always thought that the cat was Black’s pet. Perhaps he was wrong?
“Black?”
Black sighed, “It took you long enough.”
“Oh my god! Black!” Shiro held Black high in the air. “Awww. You’re such a cute kitty… Aargh!” The cat suddenly shapeshifted itself into a giant lion, plunging into Shiro.
“Figured you wouldn’t want to snuggle when I’m a lion.” Black shook his head. The waves of rainbow poured out of Black as Black’s rainbow-colored mane fluttered. It was stunning.
“You’re kidding!” Shiro interlocked his fingers with Black’s mane and cuddled him further. “Thank you.” Shiro closed his eyes as they welled up. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me. You saved me.”
Black cast out a triumphant roar. “You saved me first.”
And before Shiro knows it, he is saved again.
Shiro
Since Keith left the team, guilt has possessed Shiro's brain like a virus, putting his brain on repeat: He couldn't stop Keith. He has died. He has been causing Keith nothing but suffering.
Black's voice enters his loop of thought. “I’m sorry that I let your clone pilot me,” says Black.
“No, it wasn’t your fault,” Shiro reassures them. Team Voltron has a mission bigger than any individual. They needed a black paladin. “You did the right thing. It was mine.”
“Shiro, it wasn’t your fault either,” Black tries.
“Thanks.” Shiro fakes a smile. He wishes he could have been with Keith. He wishes he could have told him how important Keith is to the team, how important Keith is to him.
“Hey, want to come with me to visit a retreat I always go to whenever I’m sad?” Black grins, exposing their shiny fangs.
A trip most likely won't help, but it hardly can hurt him more. “Sounds great,” says Shiro, only to find that his bland voice betrays him. He resolves to cover his indifference by patting Black's mane.
“Close your eyes,” says Black.
Grateful that Black isn't affected by his lack of enthusiasm, Shiro closes his eyes.
“And say ‘Zi Xznly Heigl’.”
“Zi Xzn… what?” Shiro snaps his eyes open. How could anyone pronounce that? It makes no sense.
“Xznly. You know, like in Xznly Squiwl.” And it looks like to Black, Shiro’s struggle makes no sense.
“Uhh. Thanks. That’s VERY helpful,” he stresses. His sarcasm is futile though. Black is unwavering before Shiro gets it right, which takes Shiro five more attempts.
“Now close your eyes.”
As Shiro closes his eyes for the second time, he feels Black’s mane slip away from his fingers. Thankfully, Black’s voice returns before loneliness can creep in.
“Now you can open your eyes!”
“What does that…" He opens his eyes and is flabbergasted. "Oh. Wow.”
He is consumed by boisterous conviviality. This place is crowded with aliens. Food stalls and toy stalls are everywhere. Some aliens are Galran or Altean. Most of the others look like standing caterpillars, with four tiny feet attached to the top and four to the bottom. They’re like geometer moths’ larvae Shiro learned about in his biology class. These larvae take strides by repeating the action of looping and extending, which is why they’re also called loopers.
Only that these aliens take the idea of looping gaits to the next level. They can literally form a loop and roll down the road like a wheel.
Dazzling are the wheels they form. Dressed in extended scarves, they have plenty of flexibility to define fashion. When the aliens are standing, one can get lost in the intricate design of their scarves. Once they start to roll, the patterns blend, making them living paintings of pointillists. It is both mesmerizing and heartwarming to see a family jointly form a larger circle, creating a harmonious masterpiece.
Since these aliens communicate by literally writing in the air, they are also living calligraphy. Even more fascinating, most of these aliens are holding a Voltron-lion-shaped toy that can make their gracefulness also be perceived by smell. Similar to how a bubble wand can be used to delineate an elongated bubble, as the toy is swung in the air, clouds of fragrant fumes with the respective color gush out of it.
It reminds Shiro of the golden dragon dance in Tokyo — how it animates the spirit of a dragon. Likewise, with a toy in hand, the essence of Voltron is brought to life. It’s especially evident considering how the air is permeated with the concoction of the aromas like the five smells have become one, though the mixture only challenges someone competitive like Shiro to try recognizing each smell. The smell of roots probably belongs to the yellow smoke; spices, blue; leaves, green; flowers, red. He’s missing one. If Black represents air, perhaps the black smoke is that freshness suffusing his lungs.
While curiosity persuades Shiro to explore more, his gaze is inevitably drawn towards the sky. The sky here is like a tea garden stretching out on a celestial dome. Once in a while, white billows through the garden in the same direction as the direction in which green flourishes back. It brings him the image of sencha dressing the terrace near his grandparents’ house with verdancy and serenity in spring. And in winter, snow would take over sencha’s job as a fashion designer.
Shiro has always indulged himself in the beauty of the skies. But this one transcends his past experience. It’s not just because of the inconsistency of the sky color. Sometimes several spots of the sky would deform like needles poking through a bubble. Except that needles are not the trespassers. The culprits are a flock of bird-like creatures of various colors.
There is a transparent shield! A transparent shield. An ever-changing sky. It appears to him that the white colors could be coming from the passing clouds. They are in the air, on some floating land, at an alien festival.
Shiro could not imagine a place that is prettier, perhaps except for home, which is now an unreachable dream. Well, he is somewhat in a dream Black created.
Shiro turns towards Black to express his amazement, but in turn, he is even more astonished by Black’s appearance.
Black is around the same height as Shiro, human-like, closer to an Altean considering their elfish ears and facial markings. Nonetheless, the grace of a lion is kept. Their eyes are piercing and glowing. Their nose is long and straight. Silver whiskers are conspicuous against their brown skin like radiating beams of light. Their upper fangs sneak out of their thin mouth, exposing Black’s confidence and fearlessness. And their rainbow-colored hair is styled into Ethiopian braids, cornrow braids adorning the frontal crown and curly hair covering the back gracefully like a willow tree. Black is wearing a white woolen doublet, a pair of black hose, and a pair of white calf-length boots. Over the doublet is a black leather jerkin with six golden buckles. The lettuce hem of the jerking provides a windy illusion. Black looks as if they just walked out of a fantasy world.
“You are stunning! And this place is gorgeous.” Shiro takes a slow full turn, wanting to imprint the view in his memory. “Is this a real place? Why is it floating in the air? Why are they holding a toy that looks like you? What was that sentence you made me say?”
“Thank you. That sentence means ‘I am an awesome person’ in Altean.”
An awesome person — Shiro hopes he can live up to that. That was why Black was so relentless about Shiro getting it right. The consideration melts the frost that was biting into Shiro’s heart.
“This is my memory,” says Black. “We are on Planet Loolool. You remembered Planet Taujeer?”
“Yes.” That was the first time Keith tried to leave the team.
“It is not the only planet that sheds its skin. Planet Loolool does that too, except that the shedding process has no acid involved. It, nevertheless, creates countless earthquakes. Knowing that no construction could stay untouched, Looloolians sought help from Voltron. It became our second mission after the dark entity incident. The idea was to create an ever-moving ‘air’-plane. With proper dynamic lift force and speed, the plane could stay in the air like a satellite. You might be wondering about air resistance. That’s where Voltron came in.”
“Voltron is a source of energy,” Shiro recalls. “That was the original vision of King Alfor. This was brilliant.”
“Exactly. With the remaining comet on Daibazzal and the lands of Loolool, several floating planes were formed. It was a massive project that took ten years of Looloolian time.”
“You constructed artificial continents and made them fly!” Shiro gasps. The nerdy part of him is screaming with amazement.
“Yes! It was such a fabulous time participating in this hugely impactful project.” Black beams so brightly that the light penetrates his heart and warms it up. “Although the essence in the planes wasn’t enough to make them sentient, the planes had learning abilities nonetheless. By imitating Voltron, the planes took flight. With a good initialization, the planes could then self-teach and adapt to turbulence.”
“We call that technique imitation learning on Earth. But we never got it applied to such a massive artificial intelligence!” Probably the largest AI Shiro could imagine. Since he met Black here in the astral plane, he has rejected the idea of Voltron being an AI. Black is his real friend, not an artificial one.
“It’s so fascinating, isn’t it? The festival was meant to celebrate the one-year mark of the successful take-off.” Black’s whiskers are also lifted as they smile. It feels like Black’s entire spirit is soaring.
And the joy is contagious. Shiro’s spirit is similarly elevated. “That’s why they made the toys in the shape of you. I am so proud of you!”
“Want to enjoy the festival even more?”
“Hell yeah!” Shiro exclaims.
As they move their way through the crowd, a stream of music courses through them. The lead singer’s voice is lilting, luring Shiro to follow him into a sea of melodies. The sound of a stringed instrument gently flows up and down the scales like waves. The percussion accompanying it gives him a vision of the waves smashing into coastal rocks and breaking into a million tiny droplets. The sound of a flute is a speed boat, light and versatile — sometimes snaking, sometimes taking a quick turn, sometimes holding a casual course. And the color of the sea is set by some synthetic music. It could be glimmering, gentle, or gloomy.
When they get to the heart of the festival, they can see the band. The stringed instrument resembles a piano but is equipped with two sets of keyboards. The oddity draws Shiro’s attention to the fact that the pianist also has another set of fingers growing out of their palms. The percussion instrument lies flat on the ground. The drummer is dancing on them with his feet and tail like he’s playing the D^521R or the D^523R. (Shiro couldn’t possibly keep track of the evolution of the Dance Dance Revolution. Since Dance Dance Dance Revolution (D^3R) came out, the number of “Dance” in its title has only skyrocketed. The last time he checked it, it was prime.) The flute looks like a larger English pendant ocarina with five times more holes. The edge of it curls on one side, which makes it resemble a boat itself. And the synthetic music is coming from a computer-like device. The musician is not even touching the device. It’s similar to the latest technology on Earth — controlling a robot directly from the user’s mind by studying their neural signals, like Voltron actually.
Some of these musicians look strikingly familiar. It takes Shiro another moment to realize that the lead singer is no other singer. He’s King Alfor. The flute player is Zarkon. This is no other band. This is the original Team Voltron.
Forming a band with one’s best friends seems like an amazing idea. If the current Team Voltron were to form a band, Allura and Lance could be their vocalists. Shiro could play the guitar while Keith plays the bass. Pidge is their keyboard player and Hunk could be their drummer. Coran is that powerful device that can simulate multifarious sounds.
Shiro mulls over the band in front of him. The consonance of their music and the closeness among their members are amazing, which reminds him that before the war, Team Voltron was just a best-friend squad. It suddenly feels depressing, contrasting then and now.
“Hey look!” Black says, distracting Shiro.
Zarkon and Honerva have started dancing. Fast may be the dance, but Zarkon can still stamp every foot hard, making blasting sounds. Much lighter than Zarkon, Honerva cannot make sonorous sounds. Instead, whenever Zarkon lands hard on the ground, Honerva would bounce high in the air, like there is an invisible seesaw between them. The unbreakable bond between them is felt not only through their moves, but also their constant gaze on each other and their synchronized emotions. Zarkon cannot stop chortling, and Honerva is visibly happy even though shades of dark circles have soaked under her eyes.
“It’s a traditional Galran dance.” Black turns towards Shiro and then grimaces. “You need to change your clothes.”
“Why?” He’s happy with being a paladin, a used-to-be paladin to be more precise.
“The dance is going to be useful. You need to learn it, and you’re not wearing the right clothes.” Black rolls their eyes. Shiro is about to ask Black what they mean so that he can formally reject that idea, but Black answers it first: “For diplomacy,” which Shiro fails to disagree with. Feeling content, Black continues, “Just close your eyes and imagine yourself dressed up fancy.”
Shiro imagines himself wearing a silver waistcoat, black trousers, and black dance shoes. A black tailcoat would look great on him, but it would be too bland without any other colors. Thus, he lets vibrant embroidery expand along its lapels like a nebula and sprinkles the tail of the coat with countless tiny sparkling stars. That ought to make him look sublime. Not like he really cares that much about diplomacy.
Black fulfills all his wishes like a Genie.
“You look like a supernova!” Black commends while they continue to study Shiro’s attire for a few more ticks. “If you don’t mind, think of a kind of flower,” says Black. Rose. Keith reminds him of the rose. No, wait. A rose pops up in Black’s hand. Black adds it to Shiro’s left chest pocket. “Perfect.” Black seems pleased, but Shiro feels parented. Guess that’s the rent he’d need to pay for living in Black’s astral plane.
“How did you grow a rose in your hand?” As a tenant, he might as well learn more about his accommodation.
“I borrowed your memory.” Black’s eyes are hinting to him that there’s more to that sentence, but Shiro couldn’t figure it out. “Let me teach you the dance.” Black holds out both hands and Shiro catches them. “The Galra value power. It’s almost the opposite of Altean dances where the goal is to look effortless. In this dance, there are many movements where you are basically showing off your muscles.” Keith’s muscles… Shiro’s mind starts meandering and he quickly slams on a brake. “However, while it may look similar to sparring, the relationship with your partner is different. In sparring, you are competing against each other. Here, you are cooperating with your partner. So you need to imagine being powerful together.” Being powerful together… No, Keith is not his partner. He curses his mind.
Even with their mind-reading power, Black shows no sign of judgment. As Black goes through the footwork, Shiro finds it resembles Lindy Hop. However, there is neither a leader nor a follower; instead, an acrobatic conversation is a better analogy. The first advanced movement Black teaches Shiro is similar to plie in ballet, where one would bend their knees outwards. Except that the plie would happen mid-air. Black calls it a butterfly. The second movement is a forearm stand followed by an upside-down straddle split. Black calls it a peacock. When one does a peacock move, it’s an invitation for their partner to jump across them. The third movement is for the couple to cartwheel in opposite directions with a high five in the middle when they’re both upside-down. Black calls it a greeting pangolin. It’s obviously challenging because not only one would need to reach out a hand in the middle of a one-arm handstand, but the timing also needs to be accurate.
Shiro manages to accomplish all of them, but he is especially proud when he finishes a greeting pangolin. As he resumes his stand and turns towards Black to share his delight, he chokes at the sight. Standing there is a shorter guy, lean, dark-haired. He’s wearing a velvet tuxedo. Beneath it is a white dress shirt with jabot collars like flowers blossoming along the centerline of his chest. A red bowtie is attached to the top of the collar like a cherry added to a cake. The black trousers are sufficiently fit to hint at his athleticism. Below them are a pair of black shoes directed at him. As Shiro slowly climbs his gaze back up, Shiro’s uneasiness mirrors the ascent — his stomach twisting, his heart pounding, his face flushing, his breath quickening.
Keith.
Shiro forgets to move until Keith winks at him. As Keith approaches him, Shiro subconsciously smooths his hands over his head and then over the lapels.
“You deserve to have fun,” says Keith. “Plus, this is your chance to practice.” Shiro is about to refute the implication, but Keith interrupts him, “You know how I can read people’s minds. I can read yours.” And I can read his — Shiro almost hears Black say. Electricity zaps through his heart. Yet his heart is too fragile to hope. “Be yourself and trust me this time.” Keith gently takes both of his hands.
This is Black. He can trust Black. He can be himself. He can allow himself to practice the dance. For diplomatic purposes. And he absolutely is in need of fun.
He takes a deep breath and looks into “Keith”’s eyes, proceeding to dance. The tempo is so fast that it does feel like sparring. It’s exhilarating. It reminds him of karate where he needs to keep bounding to prepare for any unexpected attack, but, as Black has explained, it’s not a competition. It’s a chat.
Shiro wants to tell Keith that he is beautiful, so he maneuvers himself around him, like a planet rotating around its sun. “Keith” responds with a similar rotation. When he is about to finish his circle, he does a quick front handspring and grins back at Shiro. The euphoric grin rings a bell in Shiro’s memory. Shiro received the same grin when Keith finished one of their hoverbike races with a vertical circle in the air.
It prompts Shiro to translate “you are my hot pilot” into grabbing “Keith”’s hand and drawing him in. The momentum makes “Keith” spin into his chest, a blush blooming on his cheeks. Consequently, another memory blossoms. Shiro saw the same blush when Keith received the birthday cake he made for him.
Shiro takes another inhale, and in his mind, he speaks the truth: You are my star. I love you. Shiro then holds “Keith”’s waist and lifts him above his head while slowly spinning himself. “Keith” stretches out his limbs like he’s flying above him, casting down a gaze so fervent like he is truly a star; Shiro is his planet; Keith is devoted to encompassing him with light. The gaze spotlights yet another memory. Keith held his gaze with the same intensity as he was running towards Shiro, after piloting Black to save Shiro from alien creatures.
It’s a look of love.
Shiro's gaze is pulled to the white rose on “Keith”’s left chest pocket, where Keith’s heart is, where his heart is drawn to.
How did you grow a rose in your hand?
I borrowed your memory.
These are his memories! Has he not noticed any of these because he never has allowed himself to? If these are his memories, then in some sense, the person in front of him truly is Keith.
Surrounding them, the music turns ethereal. Black has helped him see what he ignored to see. Maybe this time, he can allow himself to.
Their hands are linked together. With an open mind, so are their souls. Cute little details about Keith start to walk into his mind — how low his eyelashes go when he feels shy; how many teeth he shows when he feels proud; how high his hair flies when he turns; how soft his palms feel when they are fit in his.
With an open mind, Shiro feels light. As he and Keith rotate around their joint center, Shiro decides to fly like a butterfly. Keith smiles and responds with another butterfly. They’re now like Zarkon and Honerva earlier, like a seesaw, like there’s an unbreakable bond between them, like they can be powerful together.
With an open mind, Shiro can believe. With Keith’s forearms lying on top of Shiro’s, as Keith bounces up for his next butterfly move, Shiro adds more momentum to him by raising his arms. Consequently, Keith flies over his head. Noticing that Keith lands behind him with a peacock move, Shiro accepts Keith’s invitation with a back handspring. As soon as Shiro’s legs glide past Keith, Keith pulls his own legs together. They travel their feet back to the ground at the same time, and now they’re facing each other. The distance is appropriate for them to do a greeting pangolin, so they follow it through. Accomplishing all three advanced movements like they are easy, Shiro feels powerful.
Intimate, at ease, empowered — are how it feels to be with Keith. Black has helped him feel what he refused to feel.
As they turn around to face each other, applause roars. However, Shiro sees no one but Keith, beaming at him, beautiful, hot, star-like. Most important of all, Keith looks happy, like how Shiro too is brimming with ecstasy. Shiro craves to hold onto that shared happiness.
They give each other a bow. When Shiro straightens up, the Altean Black is back.
“That was...” His appreciation for Black’s kindness and thoughtfulness is beyond words. Black has helped him dream what he feared to dream. His heart is still racing, still overflowing with warmth and tenderness. “Thank you,” he eventually manages to say.
“I’m glad that you had fun.” Black gives him a slow blink, which reminds Shiro that Black is truly a big cat. “You know, your clone feels like you. You are hurt, but you keep your moral compass. You doubt yourselves, but you try your best. Funny enough, neither of you is confident enough when it comes to Keith. He wasn’t confident enough to believe that he was the reason Keith decided to leave. He wasn’t confident enough to believe that he could be useful had Keith stayed.”
Shiro needs more time to believe in what Black has said about Keith, but Shiro could relate to his clone’s feelings.
“Shiro, I am here. You can open up to me.”
“Thank you. I am here too.” Shiro hesitates to ask Black whether they learned the dance from Zarkon. He eventually decides not to push Black. “I trust you. You can trust me.”
“I have something to show you. Catch me if you can!” Black once again reminds Shiro of a cat; cats are playful.
The streets here are grid-like as in Manhattan but not as bumpy. Racing is a simple action. It’s gratefully so. Shiro cannot remember the last time he did something without the pressure of life or death. He feels like a kid again. His feet are unfettered. His laughter is discharged. His stress is released. His mind is free. Mounds of Looloolians’ houses rush past them in the opposite direction, while multifarious wheels roll past them in the same direction.
Black stops in front of a dome. Shiro doesn’t know why he could still feel out of breath in the astral plane. It doesn’t make any sense in physics. Truth be told, neither does the existence of him in this world.
Black nudges Shiro teasingly. “We should do it more often.”
“The dance was a high-intensity workout. And I’m not on a mi-” mission like you anymore.
“I know,” Black interrupts him and takes their eyes off him. Their smile is frozen. “I enjoyed running with you. That’s what —”
Shiro interjects Black back. “Let’s do it more often. I enjoyed it too.” The words unfreeze the corners of Black’s mouth which then continue to cut into their face.
“Deal. Come.” Black walks through the door at the entrance. Shiro follows.
The inner side of the dome is covered by screens. Showing on the floor are landscapes of Loolool. The shedding of the crust mars the land with innumerable fractures, from which scarlet fractals bloom like drops of ink bleed on wet paper. Showing on the ceiling is the sky of Loolool. However, here it is minty rather than tea green. In contrast to the land aflame, the sky is pacific. It feeds Shiro with a taste of Loolool’s early morning. At the center of the dome stands a raised platform with a control panel on top and some characters along its side.
“Welcome home. That’s what those characters mean,” Black explains.
Shiro understands it now. This is a place where a Looloolian could remember being on earth, being home. Entering a Looloolian version of GPS in the control panel would show them a 3D reconstruction of their home.
“The red dots you’re seeing are the shoots of fieryhearts. These plants are resilient. They use Chlorophyll d; thus, they can survive in the dark while they find their way through the cracks. Their stems are thin and hardy enough for them to thrive even with ceaseless earthquakes. Each Looloolian planted one fieryheart the week before the planes took off. Their drones would monitor the growth of the plants and send pictures back. It represents their connection with their home.”
Home. The fieryhearts remind Shiro of the snake plant at his parents’ home. It had always been there in his memory. When he was a kid, every night, the plant sat beside the dining table listening to their chatter. After Shiro moved to the Garrison for his high school and college, every time Shiro went back home during Thanksgiving, the plant kept its presence in their family reunion.
It comes to Shiro that, even though he seems disconnected from the entire world, he still has a root. That’s perhaps how his parents felt when they moved to the United States. That was how he felt when he first went to space.
Maybe when he is finally home, the snake plant would still be there greeting him. And that’s what Black has given him — a future. He can be resilient like a fieryheart, like a snake plant. He can be home.
But what about Black? A wash of sadness floods in his heart.
“I’m sorry…” for what happened to Altea. He lays a hand on Black’s shoulder, who is now sitting on the floor.
Black looks up at him. “I have Coran and Allura. I have the other lions. I have you.” Black looks into Shiro’s eyes. “I have friends.”
Isn’t that the truth? Home is not only a place, home is also people; someone somewhere is waiting for you.
“Black, you are my family.”
Since then, they’ve been jogging every morning when team Voltron is asleep. Shiro soon figures out how to create the world in the astral plane from pieces of memories. Unlike a dream, he can knit the memories together at his will; he is the interpreter of his own stories.
They take turns designing the routes and the scenery. Over time, the scenes he creates get a bit brighter, a bit more colorful, a bit more playful. Physics has no bound to their imagination, so they are free to run upside down, run in mid-air, run beside dolphins. (Black mentioned that they didn’t know what a dolphin is.) Half of the time when it is Shiro’s turn, he creates the trail he used to run on with Keith and Adam in the park near the Garrison. If he plays their laughter as background music, Black doesn’t say anything.
Similarly, while half of the time Black takes him to different stars and planets, the other half of the time they stay on Loolool. The background music is mostly played by Band Voltron. Shiro learns from Black that the flutes come from the fruits of meloberries, which grow on riverbanks. Their boat-like shapes facilitate their propagation along the river. The holes of the flutes result from the empty pockets from which seeds are released. The Galra has developed a technique to preserve the fruit for it to be used as an instrument.
The conversation inspires Shiro and Black to grow a garden jointly, in which Black plants juniberries and meloberries; Shiro grows blue irises and cherry blossoms.
Shiro also decides to build his own house, his home. It is a mixture of his parents’ and grandparents’ — a Craftsman home with wooden floors covered by tatamis. Shiro often invites Black to come over for tea, where a snake plant would be his guest of honor. Sometimes Black would stay over as his roommate or as his cat. He would tell Black how he’s like his father, wanting to build everything with his hands; how he’s like his mother, wanting to finish everything on a plate. In return, he learns that Zarkon had a sweet tooth, loved to throw parties, and laughed like thunder. That Zarkon seemed fun, social, and energetic, a lot like Black. Black must be missing him. However, Black never seems ready to talk about what happened to the light-hearted Zarkon.
One day, Lotor kills Zarkon, the heartless one.