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It’s something Keith has never done before -- want to know someone like this. Want to know them better than anyone else, than the stars he’s started counting when he was seven and hasn’t stopped yet, than the clothes they wear.
He sits behind Shiro, in pilot class, two years younger than everyone else and strangely, puzzlingly, he doesn’t feel out of place here. Maybe he’s been built for this, for watching things, for letting them rest against his palms, for admiring their shapes.
(Like sitting in the cockpit behind the songs of the engine he can translate like no one else, like staring at the curl of Shiro’s smile, the kiss of his collar against his neck, like the shine of stars, as old as galaxies, as young as them.)
Shiro talks to him, the first day. Says, proper and calm, like Keith’s not even in his sleep: “So you’re the cadet prodigy. Nice to meet you, Keith. Takashi Shirogane.” and Keith doesn’t even stand up from his seat, awkwardly meets Shiro’s hand over his desk, like he’s aiming for something he can’t reach.
“Yeah,” he answers and thinks there’s something strange hidden in the warmth of Shiro’s palm, napalm maybe, or gasoline, or a wave of heat because he feels ignited, just by the shake of their hands.
(Stardust, it must be. It’s that. Or human blood, (im)pulses.
They’re all made of stars.)
Keith wants to impress him.
(Shiro wants him to belong.)
---
“I heard you aced the flight exam.” Shiro smiles like it’s a secret they have kept between them, this friendship Shiro fuels and Keith holds his breath to keep it living and he swallows the bite of lunch, looks at Shiro like he isn’t someone he could die for, shrugs.
“It wasn’t difficult,” he answers. It wasn’t. It wasn’t easy, either. It was -- fun. A thrill. The same fun lunches with Shiro are. The same thrill jacking off to the imaginery of Shiro is, shameful and dirty; would Shiro feel betrayed? Because Keith can’t stop himself. Keith thinks it isn’t a shame or dirt underneath his skin. Keith thinks Shiro would -- Shiro wouldn’t think he has anything to forgive him, would he.
(Not a single night.)
“Are you going to the graduation celebration?”
“I didn’t graduate.”
Shiro laughs. “I did.”
“I know.”
“Then come.”
Shiro’s foot nudges his, Keith nudges back. He rolls his eyes. “You won’t even see me in the crowd.”
“Not if you dye your hair.”
“You dye your hair.”
“I just want to know you will be there,” Shiro says, softer, smiling, like he’s teasing himself.
(Like he’s not dropping a bomb down Keith’s throat.)
“I will,” Keith answers, pushes at Shiro’s elbow at his pleased smirk, at his smug heart.
(And he wonders what it is.)
What is it Shiro wants to find in Keith?
---
“You don’t have to wait for me every afternoon.” is what Shiro’s mouth greets him with, as he falls beside Keith anyway, into the daily walk back to the base, to the third floor, to the crossing of corridors, to the difference between them.
(Ranks, height, how much kindness one’s bones can wear, what they call home.)
“What else would I do.” Keith answers, as honest as a child.
“What happened to training?” Shiro asks him, Keith stretches his back.
“I’m done with it.”
“You’re never done with training.”
“If you want to spar you just have to say so.”
“Want to give me another black eye?”
“You shouldn’t have lost focus,” Keith tells him and Shiro laughs, sheepish, hands in pockets, someone beautiful.
Someone that shouldn’t have let Keith punch him. And it’s -- the strangest occurrence. It’s the thing Keith can’t sleep over, can’t sleep without. Because Shiro, Shiro never loses: one: his grace, two: his cool, three: his focus.
(He lost all three, that day.)
((He lost them all at once.))
They borrowed bo staffs.
They were worn, from the day, the field, the echoes of space, the ringing in their ears, the gunshots too close and Keith just wanted to become molecules, just wanted to be and Shiro -- Shiro knocked his staff away, twenty minutes in, made Keith move close, impossibly, made him use his fists, knuckles, made him instinct, human shaped and free and Keith didn’t, didn’t plan it.
It surprised him, too.
He spun. He crouched. He jumped forward and his fingers brushed Shiro’s underbelly, lower, lower, his palm pressed against the warm, hot, intimate skin, hidden yet seemingly completely bare and Shiro jerked, into it or away Keith can’t tell because he -- he reacted too, smoother, fluid, and he punched him, socked him so hard Shiro’s teeth knocked, made a sound that made Keith feel scared, made him want to kiss Shiro, more than ever.
And they froze, they began moving again and Keith -- less grace, more stumble now -- Keith ran away. Hid in the showers until the water turned cold, until evening turned night and still damp, with hair dripping soapy drops, he stole a pack of frozen strawberries, knocked on Shiro’s door, said, fast, “Peace offering.” thrusting the bag between them and Shiro let him in, pressing the bag to the bruise, the aching eye.
“Where’d you get this?”
“I stole it.”
“Keith.”
“What? You’re allergic to shrimp and ice would melt,” Keith answers, seriously and Shiro’s shoulders shake, his mouth curls and he’s -- laughing, buckled over and it hurts his face but he can’t stop, can’t stop the giddy lightness of his self, how this isn’t the first time Keith has punched him, how his words punch him every day, in the most painless, wonderful way.
(And when his bruise fades from blues to purple water colours, he realizes he’s in love.
When his bruise lightens, to an ashy, sunny green, he realizes he wants to kiss Keith, someday.)
Someday.
(Some day, when his courage will reach Keith’s mouth.)
---
It’s fly-past that weekend, Shiro’s to his left, he wishes Keith good luck and Keith answers, “Ditto.” and neither need it, but it’s good to carry, like their helmets, like another layer of protection, another layer of trust.
They celebrate it after it ends, in a crowd of cadets, a crowd of employees and visitors, in a crowd of people Keith doesn’t care for but Shiro seems to, for every single one and he’s talked to, he’s dragged by his friends, he’s caught up in attention Keith gets a fraction of too, because he’s a good cadet, he’s a good pilot, he’s good looking, too Shiro says and it’s Shiro’s coworkers that press the two glasses of punch into his palms, winking, pointing at Shiro’s silhoulette.
“Your friends want to get you drunk,” Keith tells him, presents the punch, offers Shiro the cold, heavily full glass.
“Huh,” Shiro answers, looks for them but the crowd is too dense, too thick. Easy to get lost in.
(Easy to lose to, too.)
“Guess they want to see what will happen. You can always throw it out.” Keith shrugs but Shiro shakes his head, reaches for Keith’s hand.
“Let them have their fun,” he says and it surprises Keith, just a little bit, just enough so it’s easy for Shiro to snag both glasses out of his hands, to drink half of one, in one go.
“You go get your cadet-juice, cadet,” he answers Keith’s eyebrow, doesn’t budge when Keith rolls his eyes, sips from the drink Keith got for himself, too.
“I’m not underage.”
“You are flying in the morning.”
And Keith is, but it’s a routine mission, from base to base, a confidential delivery and the weather is supposed to be clear, his head’s always clear when he’s piloting but Shiro has this knowing look on him and -- he’s probably reading his mind, all of his thoughts, from the frown in Keith’s skin.
So Keith gets the juice, sweet and not as cold, watches Shiro and he’s still wonderfully gorgeous, even tired and a little bit tipsy and when Keith gets ready to leave, Shiro’s touching his shoulder, fingers just a bit heavier, just a bit stronger than any other day.
“I’ll go too,” he says and Keith doesn’t ask why, doesn’t want to hear, because unlike Shiro he’s selfish, unlike Shiro he wants to be Shiro’s favourite person, he wants Shiro to be leaving because of him, because without Keith it’s no fun anymore.
He doesn’t want to know Shiro is tired, that Shiro isn’t as fond of parties, that Shiro just wants a shower.
He doesn’t want Shiro to know he’s selfish.
(He doesn’t want to feel sorry for himself, either.)
He doesn’t ask.
---
Shiro walks him all the way to his room.
To the door.
To Keith punching in the code.
It feels like the end of a date, of something they’ve never been to, something unreal and Keith wants to go, separate them before Shiro realizes too, before he’ll betray it, himself.
Keith’s a second into his room when Shiro interrupts the space, breathes: “Keith,” like all oxygen turned into boys with dark hair and bruise, stars, galaxy coloured eyes, like he’s been holding Keith’s name back for months, like it was trapped, between his heart and his lungs, struggling, bruising, there.
But “Goodnight.” is what follows, a black hole of a syllable.
(It stops everything, every wildly running emotion, every scattered, spreading, growing hope.)
Keith closes the door.
---
Shiro is leaning against the wall when Keith walks out of the office, looking up to meet him and it’s strange, this reverse perspective, since usually it’s Keith waiting and Shiro returning and Shiro smiles at him, almost shy and stands up straight, like Keith’s someone to put effort for, like Keith’s just that important to him, too.
“Want to have early lunch with me?” Shiro asks and there’s no one who could say no to Shiro, because Shiro wouldn’t ask anything that would deserve a no of anyone and even if he might -- Keith can’t really deny him anything, can he.
So they walk and most things Shiro does he does with intention; rarely aimless, rarely lost, rarely someone you can stumble upon, (always someone you can find).
“Are you angry with me?” he asks when Keith’s knife scrapes his plate, his fork trapped between his teeth and if Keith expected anything, he didn’t expect this. (Angry?)
“Why?” he asks, instead of an answer, thinking Shiro’s probably not even hungry, not here for the food.
“Last night when I said goodnight to you -- you didn’t reply.”
“I’m not angry.”
“You closed the door.”
“I was going to bed.”
“Okay,” Shiro breathes out. “Okay,” he repeats, accepts Keith’s words.
(Keith can’t.)
“I’m in love with you,” he says, matter-of-fact, honest, relieved and look, Shiro’s made out of clay, unmovable but soft, forming, Keith a struggle inside of him, his lungs constrict.
“Oh,” he says.
“Thanks for the lunch.” Keith stands up, takes his tray, leaves Shiro with his share and it might be unfair, but Keith feels better.
Keith feels true.
(Now Shiro knows. Keith is: a good pilot, an orphan, alien to some concepts Shiro likes/is, in love with Shiro, anyway.)
Now Shiro knows.
---
Keith’s the one who didn’t know.
Shiro’s been drafted. Shiro’s been at the side of his bed, Shiro wanted to kiss him, to kiss him awake, but Shiro is too kind, too much in a hurry, to do that, to do any of that, at all.
(He leaves him a note and when Keith runs out of the docks, he barely catches the take off.
Barely hears Shiro over the comms, estimating their time of travel.
Doesn’t have time to say “You better”.
Doesn’t have time to see him smile.)
Things return to their order.
Keith watches where the composition of Shiro’s shoulders used to be, from the back of the class, from the roof of the base.
Things are like they used to be.
Shiro’s in motion.
And Keith waits.
---
Going on a short-term mission tomorrow, to Kerberos. Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone.
I’ll be back.
P.S.: Ditto