Work Text:
“She’s absolutely gorgeous!”
And Keith froze, a frown appearing on his face as his brow creased, his mind telling him he didn’t want to know, but Lance—
Lance decided to take up the path Keith needed to take in order to get where he wanted to go, which in turn made Keith wonder if he should change his plans as he looked at Lance sitting there, holding out a picture.
A picture that he kissed, which—
“Cringe,” Keith thought to himself, his mind quickly going to the behavior he’d seen from some of Ryou’s fans, and—
“She is like, the most spectacular member of AKBOO48,” Lance said, going to kiss the picture.
And Keith felt like gagging. “Definitely that kind of behavior.” But from the way Lance turned to glare at him—
Likely, he’d made a gagging sound as Lance glared at him. “What?” the blue paladin snapped. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Keith opened his mouth to snap back about how he found such behavior to be disgusting, having seen it aimed at both Ryou and Shiro, his mind remembering it was Lance who’d fanboyed over Shiro, to which he really shouldn’t have been surprised that Lance was doing this, but then—
“Well?”
“Wait. Don’t you mean AKB48?” Keith asked, remembering Ryou having done a collab or two with that particular group.
Lance glared at him. “Uh, no. Sweet Mimori is a part of AKB0048, not AKB48.” He then rolled her eyes. “But of course you wouldn’t know squat about this kind ot thing.”
“Of course,” Keith said, staring at Lance, now completely unsure of what Lance was talking about.
“She’s absolutely darling, perhaps even more beautiful than Allura.”
“Uh…” Keith felt Lance wasn’t wrong about everything going over his head as the idea of being so wishy washy regarding—
“Of course, she had to cut her beautiful hair,” Lance bemoaned. “But as Mariko.” He pulled the picture to his chest. “I don’t know which I find more darling.”
“Wait? As Mariko?” Keith said. His head tilted.
Lance sighed. “Of course you wouldn’t be following. She went through her succession and became an official member of AKBOO48.”
“But what’s with the Mimori, er, Mariko thing?”
“Succession means taking on a new name.”
“Uh, no,” Keith said. “Succession means moving up from an understudy position to being an official part of an idol group. I may be dense…”
“Hold on! Hold on!” Lance said, his mouth forming a pout. “That’s not wrong, but how…”
“They don’t change names. AKB48 keep their names, no?”
“AKB0048,” Lance said, rolling his eyes. “They pop idols who’ve been fighting the Galra longer than we have.”
Keith stared, then after a moment. “No. It’s AKB48.”
“I know what I’m talking about!” Lance said. “And…”
“We’re talking about two different things.”
Lance rolled his eyes. “Of course not.”
Keith frowned, then, out spouted a few lyrics from one of the songs, and then a few from another, and started into a third…
“Whoa! Stop!” Lance said. “I didn’t know you listened to AKB0048.”
Keith sighed. “I…”
“Who’s your favorite?”
Keith stared.
“Well?”
“Yeah. You do realize this AKB0048 filched its act from a group back on earth called AKB48, right?”
“How dare you!” Lance said, letting out a gasp. “Liar! You don’t want to admit you’ve got a crush on one of the girls! But I bet you perve over them…”
“That would be you,” Keith said, a thought crossing his mind. “And if you doubt me? Ask Shiro.”
“Why would I ask Shiro?”
“Why indeed,” Keith asked, deciding to step around Lance and head on his way, thinking nothing of it until—
Well, they had to run into that group, and Lance had to be a complete idiot trying to show off, which led to Keith.
Keith frowned, AMBOO48 knocked off in his arms, while Lance stood with his jaw dropped.
“Oh. Thanks,” the girl said.
A girl with pink hair and pink eyes, with heart-shaped sparkles as if there was some magical power tied to her in the same way as there was with Allura, but effectively an alien race similar to humans, but different in ways that felt obvious.
“Err…” Keith said, tensing when she placed a kiss on his cheek before he set her down, and—
Lance looked mad.
And—
“Oh. It’s Mariko Shinoda,” Pidge said, pushing up her glasses.
The girl nodded, while Lance muttered with a slight whine. “Marinin.”
Pidge and Hunk were chuckling, looking at Lance, while Mariko turned to him. “You are the paladin of Voltron, no?”
And then Keith blurted out, “Shouldn’t it be Shinoda Mariko as Shinoda’s the family name?”
To which—
Keith managed to step on a landmine, which delighted Mariko and the other AKB48 fakes because—
It took a second for him to realize they’d switched into the Japanese language, and he followed suit, and—
“Are the Voltron paladins from Earth?” the girl asked.
“Yes?” Keith asked.
“Then! Have you gotten to meet and greet AKB48?”
“Uh…” Keith frowned. “That, uh.” They weren’t really his thing, but Ryou had managed—
He’d met some.
It was—
His eyes blinked. “Oh.”
“Wait,” Lance frowned. “Why would Keith have had a chance to attend one of your meet-and-greets? We’ve been as busy fighting the Galra as you.”
“You didn’t ask Shiro, did you?” Keith said, glaring at him.
“Shiro?”
“Black paladin,” Hunk chimed in.
“Why? Why ask Shiro? What…”
“Ryo did collab,” Keith said, then felt like he regretted it.
“Ryou? As in Shirogane Ryou?” Maririn said with a hum, before pulling out a device and thumbing through, and then—
Keith stared, horrified as they looked at them, almost as if—
“You look like Shirogane!”
“No, no,” Lance said. “He doesn’t look like Shiro.”
“Shiro?” one of the other girls told while Maririn continued grinning.
Pidge let out a cough. “Shirogane Ryo’s older brother. We call him Shiro.”
“The Black Paladin is related to Shirogane Ryou?”
Keith froze, despite the instinct to run, because females—
—scary females—
“He does look like Ryo? You think…” One of the others said.
“Can you sing?” Mariko said, grinning big, reminding Keith of—
Well, he’d met the girls, and it seemed they took on the personality of their namesakes, which—
Scared him.
“You could pass as Ryou,” Mimori said.
“No,” Keith said. “I’m not Ryo. I’m not Akira.”
“Wait. What’s going on here?” Lance said.
“I think they want to do a collab with Keith?”
“No fair!”
“Wait. What…” Shiro said, appearing at what felt like the worst moment. “What collab. What is…” He paused, looking at the girls. “Uh? AKB48 fangirls?”
“Oh, not even,” one of the girls chuckled.
“We take bringing AKB’s music to the stars and fighting the Galra quite seriously.”
Shiro turned to look at the red paladin, looking a bit horrified. “Keith. What…”
“I’m going to kill Ryo,” Keith said through gritted teeth. “This is all his fault.”
“Uh. What does Ryo?”
“You’re a Shirogane?” Mariko said. “Older brother to Shirogane Ryo?”
“Keith?” Shiro said, the horror looking as if it were growing even more.
“What the hell is going on!” Lance said.
“I really, really want to die,” Keith said, right before—
Something told him the girls wanted to do one of Ryo’s collab projects using him.
And—
Well, Keith didn’t know where to run while Mariko continued smiling at him, she and the other girls definitely making up their minds.
And something told him Shiro couldn’t protect him from this.