Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Let the winds of heaven blow through the paths among the clouds and close their gates. Then, for a while, I could detain these messengers in maiden form.”

Hunk closes the book and smiles. “Come on, you can’t tell me that doesn’t sound awesome.” He pauses. “Well, they sound even cooler in Japanese, but if you don’t know the poems, it’s kinda hard to understand.”

“Hunk, buddy, you gotta stop reading me all this artsy mumbo jumbo. I am not joining your team!” Lance whines as he stares at his math homework with a certain fury. The same problem had been plaguing him for the past fifteen poems. “Karuta isn’t gonna help me get the ladies!”

“But you promised!”

Lance looks up, brows furrowed and nose scrunched. “When and why would I have ever done that, Hunk?”

“We were in middle school! Mrs. Herr was the club advisor?”

“Oh my god,” Lance murmurs as he remembers the heavyset, no excuses German woman that wasn’t afraid of slapping a kid’s behind when they were out of line. He shakes his head. “Either way, I was just a kid.”

Hunk closes his eyes and hums, running a hand through his wavy hair. “Though he forsook me, for myself I do not care: He made a promise, and his life, which is forsworn, oh how pitiful that is.”

“Hunk!”

The boy raises his hands up and puts his head down as he gets up from his chair. “Look, all I’m saying is you’re gonna end up wishing you accepted my invitation.” Hunk turns to leave, a slight bounce in his step before looking back to give Lance one last look. “And you’ve been taking the derivative this whole time, not the integral.”

Lance cries out.

How often was it, that Lance found himself taking makeup tests after hours?

Too often, Lance thinks.

And so when he’s finally done, done with the math problem and the professor and the musty old building people have taken to calling a “school,” Lance sprints out of the classroom, fast enough that the “don’t run in the hallways!” from his teacher sounds fogged and filmy.

He blasts through the double doors of the back entrance, paying no heed to the clatter of baseball bats to his right or the thwack of tennis rackets to his left. The fastest way home is along the pond by the old middle school building, so that’s where he heads.

The matured building sits exhausted, with bricks missing in places and bushes yellowed with age and ignorance. It likely would’ve been condemned if it weren’t so useful as a storage building.

Or as the meeting place of the karuta club.

Lance slows his pace as he passes the glass sliding door, stopping just shy of the entrance. He steels himself, ready to walk by without a glance, hoping that they wouldn’t notice.

A melodic voice and a thud stops him.

“Kaze o itami, iwa utsu nami no, onore nomi.”
(Like a driven wave, dashed by fierce winds on a rock, so am I: alone.)

“Curse you, Mullet! That was mine!”

“Quiet, Pidge. Hunk hasn’t finished reading.”

Lances hears Hunk deep, sonorous voice again, and he puts his ear against the wall of the building.

“Kudakete mono o, omou koro kana.”
(And crushed upon the shore, remembering what has been.)

Hunk’s voice rings out, the bold syllables leaving his tongue as if in song.

“It was a good try, Pidge,” says Mullet. “But it looks like I’m the winner of today’s match.”

“Oh, fuck off--”

“Pidge!” Hunk yelps, and Lance imagines that the boy has taken up ‘Pidge’ in a bear hug and covered her mouth. “Language!”

Before Lance can stop himself, he lets out the loudest guffaw he’s ever made.

He freezes and feels fear well up deep inside his chest, but the room has already gone silent, and someone is walking towards the door, and where the hell should he run to, there aren’t any trees for cover!

The door clacks and clangs as it slides open, and suddenly, Hunk is peering down at the crouched figure of Lance with a wide, Cheshire grin. “Hey, look who’s here!”

“I’m not joining your stupid club!” Lance sputters as he stares at the dirt that he’s practically laying in, his face heating up and his hands clenched into fists.

Hunk’s eyebrows find a new home near his canary yellow headband. “Then why were you spying on us?”

“I wasn’t spying! I just... thought someone was getting beaten up in there, with all the pounding going on! Like, who pissed you off?”

“Mm, I’m sure, I’m sure…” Hunk says, trailing off. “Well, if you’d like, you can make sure we aren’t, uh, pummeling each other inside of the building rather than outside of it.”

Lance gets up one leg at a time, brushing the soil from his pants as he struggles to his feet. Maybe just in case... “I mean, someone has to take care of you guys.” Lance shrugs and tilts his proud head. “I guess I’ll just have to be the sacrificial lamb here.”

Hunk snorts and gestures for him to go inside. Upon entering, three new pairs of eyes greet him. Or, rather, one pair of eyes greets him. The other two, belonging to Mullet and Pidge, are leering into his very soul.

Mullet speaks up first. “This is the guy?”

“You’ve said four words, and I already don’t like you,” Lance counters.

“Good. You’re free to leave, then.”

“Keith, we need a fifth player. Let’s at least give him a shot,” the boy with the weird undercut says and the even weirder nose scar. Lance likes him. He’s the only one that didn’t look like he wanted to kill him as soon as he came in. He’ll definitely have to get to know him first--

Wait a second.

“Whoa, hold up! I didn’t say I was joining!” Lance turns to Hunk and does some leering of his own. “Hunk!”

Hunk’s eyes go big. He pouts and puts his hands together. “Pleeeeease?”

Damn Hunk and his pout.

“One game! Then I leave!”

“Yes! Thank you, Lance!” Hunk says, pulling Lance by the hand to the tatami mat. “Alright, you can play me for your first match.”

Undercut makes a face. “We want him to join the team, right?”

Hunk frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re gonna destroy him,” Keith deadpans.

What happened to me making sure that no one got pummeled in here…?

Pidge pushes her glasses up. “At least teach him the rules first.”

“Oh, come on, Lance knows how to play karuta!” Hunk starts, rolling his eyes. “Right, Lance?”

“Karuta has rules?”

Undercut stands up and claps his hands together. “Alright! Let’s just introduce ourselves first, and then we can get down to the nitty gritty stuff about how to play karuta. Sound good?”

There are a few grumbles, but no one objects.

“I’ll start. My name is Takashi Shirogane, but everyone calls me Shiro. I’m an A-Rank player and captain of the club.” He finishes with a slight bow of his head, and from that alone, Lance knows to respect him. He nods at Keith to get him to introduce himself as well.

Keith sighs.

Asshole.

“Yeah, yeah. Name’s Keith Kogane. B-Rank.” Keith doesn’t care to elaborate past that.

“Aw, can’t hold your own with the big boys up in A-Rank?” Lance sneers, but the pregnant silence he’s met with indicates that he struck a chord. Hunk’s tapping his teeth with his fingers, Pidge is looking away, and Shiro is rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh… Sorry, dude.”

“Anyway!” Hunk interrupts, waving his hands. “I’m Hunk, but you knew that! I’m an A-Rank that specializes in two-syllable cards and colorful poems!” He nudges Keith before continuing. “This guy neglected to mention it, but his specialty is one syllable cards.”

Keith harrumphs, but otherwise keeps his arms crossed against his chest and stays silent.

Hunk turns to Pidge, who Lance already knows by the room’s previous outbursts, but he lets her introduce herself nonetheless. “Pidge?”

“You kinda ruin the introduction if you say my name, Hunk,” Pidge mutters, shaking her head.

“It’s alright, I caught it earlier,” Lance comments.

“Mm, I’m glad our fifth member is an eavesdropper,” Pidge hums, before breaking into a small, contained laugh. “I’m Katie. Katie Holt. But call me Pidge. I’m an A-Rank that’s good at cutting down multi-syllable cards into one-syllable cards.”

Lance is about to open his mouth, but Hunk interrupts. “We’ll get to that. Let’s talk about the rules, first.” He clears his throat and straightens up from his seated position on the floor. “Karuta revolves around poetry--specifically, the poems from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. From the translation, I’m sure you realize that there are 100 poems, each by different poets. They’re all tankas, following a syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7.”

“Yeah, we learned about them in class,” Lance responds, nodding.

Hunk continues. “In a karuta match, there are fifty cards, each with the second verse of one of the poems printed on them, and each player gets twenty-five of the fifty. The other fifty cards are unused; those poems are considered dead. There’s a fifteen minute memorization period, where you’re expected to learn the positions of the cards.”

Lance's eyes go almost comically round and he takes a heaving breath.“We have to memorize all of them?”

Hunk goes on as if he didn’t hear him. “The reader, who starts by reading a specific opening poem, will read one poem after another, starting with the first verse. As soon as you’re able to discern which poem it is, you swipe at the card with the second verse of that poem on it.”

He proceeds to demonstrate going for a card; his arm extends swiftly, his elbow unfolding at a precise moment in time, no energy wasted. He does it a second time--his arm completely fluid, each muscle turning to water as he swipes at an invisible card.

“Don’t overextend yourself though,” Shiro chimes in. “Hunk’s been playing for a long time; his arm can handle the exertion.”

“Exertion?” Lance scoffs. “We’re talking about a poem game. How much could I possibly exert myself?”

Keith snorts and stands up. “You’d be surprised. Some people lose up two kilograms of their weight after a full day of playing in a karuta tournament.”

“You lose weight?”

“Quiet!” Pidge scolds, flicking Lance in the back of the head. “Let Hunk finish!”

Hunk smiles at Pidge before turning back to Lance. “The first player to remove all the cards from their side wins. If you take a card from your side, you simply move it out of play to a pile on your side. If you take a card from your opponent’s side, however, you get to give the opponent one of your cards.”

“You really only have to touch the card to ‘take’ it,” Shiro inputs, noting the confusion in Lance’s eyes. “But you have to be patient and precise. Mistakes will cost you.”

“Right. There are faults in karuta,” Hunk adds, laying out some cards to demonstrate. He sets five in front of him and five in front of Lance. “There are generally considered to be four otetsuki in karuta. The first two are single faults: touching the wrong card in the wrong territory and touching a card when a dead card is read.”

“Doing either of those lets your opponent transfer a card to you,” Pidge says, grimacing. I wonder if it cost her a match once. “But touching the wrong card in the same territory as the card being read does not incur a penalty. So feel free to whack away at any cards near the one you want,” Pidge finishes with a smile, although it feels forced.

Hunk smiles sadly at Pidge, almost as if to reassure her, but it’s to no avail, as Pidge looks away soon after. “Double faults are worse, though; if you touch a card in the wrong territory,” he starts, touching a card on Lance’s side, “and your opponent takes the correct card from your territory,” he continues, taking Lance’s hand and putting it on one of his cards, “they get to give you two cards.”

“And if you hit a card in both territories on a dead card, the opponent gives you two cards,” Keith adds,

“Harsh,” Lance mutters, scratching his head. Karuta just got way too complicated for his taste. He shrugs it off and sits cross-legged across from Hunk. “Let’s do this, then. One game.”

“Fine, fine,” Hunk says, laughing. “But I promise, you’ll want more.”

Shiro approached an ornate looking box, covered with beautiful ukiyo-e designs. “I’ll read. Pidge, play Keith again.”

"Get ready to lose by ten, Mullet," Pidge snarls, getting down on her knees across from Keith. "And you can say goodbye to your precious one-syllables this time!"

“In your dreams,” Keith retorts simply.

“Lance, you’re gonna want to sit on your calves,” Shiro suggests, eyeing the too relaxed form of Lance on the mat. “You won’t be able to beat Hunk to any of the cards sitting like that.”

Lance rolls his eyes. I can beat Hunk in a game of speed. Please. I’ve known the guy since elementary school. He’s not fast. But he heeds Shiro’s advice anyway, getting on his haunches, resting his hands on his thighs.

“Alright, let’s start,” Shiro announces.

He clears his throat and reads the opening poem.

Hunk has 5 cards left on his side. Lance has 25.

“How…” Lance murmurs, his eyes wide open, but unseeing, his ears perked, but unlistening. “How have I not taken a single card!”

“Lance… Find a card you like. And don’t let me get it!” Hunk offers.

Great advice, buddy. Easier said than done.

Shiro clears his throat, finishing the second verse of the previous poem.

“Tada ariake no, tsuki zo nokoreru.”
(The only thing I found was the moon of early dawn.)

Lance finds that Shiro’s voice, while completely different than Hunk’s, took on the same reverent tone as he sang the poems. It was entrancing, in a way.

There’s silence.

“Yo o--”

Two thuds follow, and a card flies out of Lance’s line of sight as Hunk stays leaned forward, his arm still extended. Unbelievable...

“--komete, tori no sorane, wa hakaru tomo.”
(The rooster's crowing in the middle of the night deceived the hearers;)

Think Lance, think! Which card do you want?!

He scans over the cards in his zone, and then over the ones in Hunk’s. Which one means something to me?!

And then he sees it. It’s small, barely noticeable--a bubble in the ocean of cards. But it’s there; the slightest tinge of blue, washing over a card by Hunk’s left leg.

Shiro finishes the second verse.

“--Yo ni Osaka no seki wa yurusaji.”
(But at Osaka's gateway the guards are never fooled.)

If I can just get that card! Concentrate Lance, concentrate. As long as Shiro reads that card, I won’t let Hunk touch it before me.

Lance closes his eyes and breathes out.

Silence.

“Momo--”

“It’s mine!” Lance yells, lunging towards the card and collapsing unceremoniously on top of the field of poems. Hunk’s hand is moving there too; quickly, to boot. But I’ll get there first! Lance’s fingers touch the hard plastic, and suddenly the card is flying.

It soars; past Hunk, past Pidge and Keith, past Shiro. With a thwack, it hits the glass door.

Everyone is silent, Lance included. Shiro hasn’t even finished the poem.

Hunk smiles.

“Well, go get your card, Lance.”

He has to push himself off the ground, his legs somehow not finding the strength to stand on his own after sitting throughout the match. Staggering, he goes to the card and picks it up, holding it in front of his face with both of his hands. He recites the entire poem.

“Momoshiki ya, furuki nokiba no, shinobu ni mo; Nao amari aru, mukashi nari keri. In this ancient house, paved with a hundred stones, ferns grow in the eaves; But numerous as they are, my old memories are more.” Lance reads the English aloud too. “My first card…”

Suddenly, everyone’s clapping, even grumpy, old Keith. “Congrats, dude,” Hunk says, roping an arm around Lance’s neck and when did Hunk get behind me? “The first card is always the best one.”

Lance flushes, feeling a little bit of warmth in his cheeks. “T-Thanks,” he manages to stammer, and he hopes no one notices that he’s blushing, but Pidge is snickering off to the side, so he knows he’s doomed.

“Why’d you pick that one?” Hunk inquires, hand still on Lance’s shoulder.

“You’re uh, gonna think this sounds really stupid,” Lance starts.

“Try me,” Hunk says, letting his lips bend into one of his toothless grins, and Lance about crumples to his knees with how adorable it looks.

Lance coughs and rubs his neck sheepishly. “The card was uh… blue.”

“Blue?” Keith says with a snort. “That card is black and white, with a green border. Are you sure you aren’t colorblind?”

“Look, it felt blue to me!” Lance yells, defending himself. “The poem itself was blue. The ancient house was full of memories… I thought about my old home back in Cuba, right near the beach, where the waters were deep and full and--”

“Blue,” Hunk finishes, his cheeks dimpled and his eyes twinkling.

Lance looks down at the tatami mat and smiles too. “Yeah. I’ve got tons of good memories of my family back there. Somehow, that poem just made sense to me.” He shakes his head. “That probably sounds really stupid.”

“Not at all,” Hunk says, shaking his own head. “I have my own cards like that. When I see the cards on the mat, I see a rainbow. Deep reds and bright green, all scattered across the tatami…”

Hunk looks at Lance, eyes crinkled and lips curved upward. “Karuta is full of colors!”

Lance’s heart skips a beat.

Taking Hunk’s hand, he heads back over to the mat; he holds his hand up so Shiro knows he’s passing a card. It doesn’t matter which one he sends--he knows he won’t take another one. But still, principles are important.

“I’ll join this team on one condition.”

Hunk stares at him attentively, and Shiro waits with bated breath. But Pidge and Keith fix him a dead gaze, not knowing what to expect.

“Keith cuts off his mullet!”

There’s a collective groan.

The day of Lance’s first karuta team tournament finally arrives, and while he’d like to focus on the upcoming matches and all the poems he doesn’t have memorized yet, he’s too busy complaining about the wardrobe.

“Why are we wearing dresses?” Lance says, tugging at the cornflower blue kimono he’s wearing.

Pidge snorts. “If you’re so worried about your manhood, stop giving Hunk googly eyes all the time.” Lance splutters, but Pidge doesn’t give him time to lodge a complaint. “And kimono are robes, not dresses.” With a mischievous glint in her eyes, she eyes a pile of neatly folded garments in the corner by their stuff. “If anything here is close to being a dress, it’s the hakama that we put on.”

Lance groans and buries his face in his hands. “So Hunk will be wearing a dress, then.”

“A kimono and a hakama,” Pidge corrects. “We all will.”

A sigh escapes through Lance’s lips, and he slumps against the wall.

“Except for Hunk. He’s actually wearing a dress.”

“What?!”

Pidge smirks and pats Lance on the back. “Jeez, calm down, lover boy. You need to focus more on the match.” She places a crooked finger on her bottom lip and looks toward the ceiling, as if in deep thought. “Well, Shiro, Hunk, and I will probably win, so you don’t really have to. But you still need to try!”

With one more pat, Pidge gets up and leaves their team’s room.

Unable to stop the growing pit in his stomach, Lance poses one more question: “Wait, so is Hunk wearing a dress or not?!”

“He’s not wearing a dress, you dolt!” Pidge yells back, slamming the sliding wooden door shut.

As much as the thought of seeing Hunk in a dress makes him squirm in his seat, Lance can’t get something else Pidge said out of his head.

“Well, Shiro, Hunk, and I will probably win, so you don’t really have to.”

I knew going into this that I wasn’t gonna be doing much of the winning for the team… But to be told out front that I’m a damn placeholder?

Lance leans forward and shakes his head toward the ground.

Sure, I’ve lost all my matches so far, but…

But what?

I’m not making progress.

Why the hell am I still here?

He slams his fist into the wall behind him, the wood behind the plaster threatening to break apart with creaks and groans. His eyes are still trained on the ground, and there’s a moisture that threatens to run down his face by the bucket.

Why?

The panel door slides open slowly, and Hunk peers in. “Is everything alright in here? I heard a thud.”

“Everything’s fine--”

“Oh my god, Lance, are you alright?!” Hunk blurts, rushing over and taking a knee at Lance’s side. Stupid, kind, Hunk.

Lance rubs at his eyes, hoping that his hands are as effective as tissues. “I told you, buddy, I’m fine--”

Hunk grabs both of Lance’s wrists and stares him in the face. “You most certainly are not fine, Lance!” He absentmindedly starts rubbing circles on the inside of Lance’s wrists with his thumbs, and it takes all of his self-control not to whimper. “What’s the matter?”

The room goes silent, save for a few sniffles from Lance. But Hunk’s focused eyes voice an intense, yet soft concern.

“I want to quit the team.”

Hunk keeps ahold of Lance’s wrists, but he averts his gaze. “I-Is there a particular reason you want to quit the team?” he coughs, although Lance is sure that Hunk wasn’t sick when he got here this morning.

Lance looks down at the floor. “Because I’m not on this team to help you guys win. I’m here to be the fifth member. The qualifying member."

This time the silence is suffocating, and it probably has something to do with the fact that neither of them are breathing, but Lance feels so crowded against that wooden panel of a wall.

“Since when has karuta has been about winning?” Hunk breathes.

Lance lifts his head up and looks at Hunk, eyes wide.

“You had fun when you played against us, right?”

No response.

Hunk pauses. “You didn’t win any of those matches. So why did you keep playing?”

“I…” Lance starts, letting his eyes lid a little. “I wanted to get better. And getting one of my favorite cards was always the best feeling in the world.” Suddenly, he slides his hands under and grips the other boy’s forearms.

“A-And, it didn’t hurt seeing you so happy,” he finishes, looking up at Hunk’s forehead.

Hunk has barely breathed since Lance grabbed his arms, but he finally finds the energy to close his mouth and smile. Without a word, he gets up and pulls Lance up with him. “Wait here a moment.” He walks to the corner of the room with the solemnity of a heron, in spite of his size, and once there, he grabs the smalt hakama from the pile of garments and shakes it, letting air open up the creases and folds in the silk.

He returns to Lance, not taking his eyes off the hakama or the ground. “We’ve been waiting to use this blue one for some time now.” Hunk abruptly raises his head to meet Lance’s eyes. “I’m glad you’re the one that gets to wear it, Lance.”

“Stop it,” Lance says, chuckling and rubbing his neck. He’s still crying a little. “You’re so cheesy. It’s ridiculous.”

“Can I tie your hakama?”

Lance holds out his hands, and with slightly bleary eyes and a runny nose, he replies. “Be my guest, I still don’t know how any of this stuff works.”

He smiles and takes the obi into his hands, spinning Lance so that he could work from his backside. Hunk lifts the sash above Lance’s head and brings it down to his navel, tying the royal blue obi into an under-hakama knot at his backside. “There are four straps on a hakama, two longer ones in the front, and two shorter ones in the back.”

Swift hands wrap the two front straps around Lance’s back, then to the front, then once again to his back, where Hunk ties them together under the obi knot. “The front straps make the back knot, and the back straps make the front knot,” he continues, smoothing out any wrinkles in Lance’s kimono, his smooth, warm hands making Lance shiver. “The back knot is uninteresting, but the front knot is special--for us guys, it’s a two bowtie cross.”

Hunk spins Lance again with his unnecessarily strong and soft hands and now he’s kneeling on the ground with his hands near Lance’s groin, and Lance thinks he might pass out then and there. With delicate fingers, he pulls at the two bowties, making sure they were an even length before placing his hands on his thighs. “And we’re done.”

Lance sighs, happy to be free from the temptation of Hunk, yet sad to be relieved of his balmy touch. “Thanks, Hunk.”

“Don’t mention it,” Hunk says, massaging Lance’s shoulder. He pauses before continuing. “Like, actually don’t mention it. The team would give me so much crap if they found out about this.”

Lance chuckles and leans his head into Hunk, before realizing that his head is on Hunk’s massive pectoral and that might be just a little bit suggestive. He quickly moves up, but suddenly there’s a pressure on the back of his skull and his forehead is on Hunk again.

“H-Hunk?”

“I just want to stay here for a bit,” he responds simply. “Is that alright?”

Lance feels his face get incredibly hot, and he hopes that Hunk can’t feel it through his marigold kimono. “Y-Yeah, that’s fine.”

Fine?!

More than fine.

…

But we can talk about that later.

Lance closes his eyes and breathes out.

Later. For sure.

There’s an absolute silence that hangs over the room, one that would perhaps be unachievable in any other setting. Four rows of five people confront each other and sit as statues, their faces hung over the cards and fixed with solemn, stone gazes.

An aged lady clothed in lilac stands alone at a lectern. There’s a card clutched against her chest, and as she raises it towards her face, her lips part, ever so slightly.

“Ima wa--”

An eruption occurs, and suddenly cards are in the air.

“Yes!” Lance yells, but Hunk quickly shushes him.

“--tada, omoi taenan, to bakari wo. Hito-zute nara de, iu yoshi mo gana.”
(Is there any way except by a messenger to send these words to you? If I could, I'd come to you to say goodbye forever.)

Hunk and Pidge have already won their matches, so their team is up two wins anyway, but damn it, he’s gonna win this match, or he’ll die trying.

“Me--”

Thuds resound, and Lance groans. “Don’t worry about it! Take the cards you want to take!” Hunk says over the bustle on the tatami.

“--guri aite, mishi ya sore to mo, wakanu ma ni. Kumo-gakure ni shi, yowa no tsuki kage.”
(Meeting on the path: But I cannot clearly know if it was he, because the midnight moon in a cloud had disappeared.)

A stillness returns. And it is just as quickly broken.

“Hisa--”

Lance swipes at the card, sending it to the right, past Shiro and past Keith, who both get their cards as well. A collective “Yes!” resounds, and Hunk stiffens as if to shush them, but a smile gets the better of him, and he sits back on his hind legs.

Shiro bows to his opponent, bringing his entire body to the mat, and his opponent does the same. There’s a faint echo of “Arigatou gozaimashita!” and then a louder call of “Voltron, three wins!” as Shiro pumps his fist into the air.

Only Lance and Keith continue to play.

“kata no, hikari nodokeki, haru no hi ni. Shizu-gokoro naku, hana no chiruran.”
(In the peaceful light of the ever-shining sun. In the days of spring, why do the cherry's new-blown blooms scatter like restless thoughts?)

Lance’s opponent is small--a grade lower than him, he thinks. There’s a bead of sweat that clings to her right fringe, but Lance knows the moment the reader speaks again, it will fly off somewhere. He hopes it won’t be onto him.

“Mika no--”

There’s a drop of moisture that flies onto Lance’s cheek, as his opponent reaches the card before him. At his left, Hunk is giggling into his hand, and Lance has half a mind to flick him on the nose, but he knows that it is undoubtedly the wrong time and the wrong place to do so.

So, he does it anyway.

“Ow, Lance!” Hunk whines, rubbing his nose. “Save that power for the match!”

“I’m not gonna be flicking the cards--”

“Both of you, hush,” Shiro scolds, and they immediately go stiff and silent, listening to the second verse of the poem.

“Itsu mi kitote ka, koishi karuran.”
(I do not know if we have met: Why, then, do I long for her?)

Keith is about to win his match--he has one card left, and his opponent has nine. But Lance’s match is still close, as both he and his opponent have five cards. It’s the closest match he’s ever played, in fact, and even though the team has already won, he sure as hell isn’t going to lose now.

“Ake--”

A thumps leads into a muddling of thank you’s, and suddenly Keith yells, “Voltron, four up!”

And now Lance is losing by one card, and all eyes are on his match.

“--nureba, kururu mono to wa, shiri nagara. Nao urameshiki, asaborake kana.”
(Though I know indeed that the night will come again after day has dawned. Still, in truth, I hate the sight of the morning's coming light.)

Just me, huh? I’ll probably screw it up.

Lance grips his hakama and glares at the ground. Five cards to four cards, five cards to four cards. I can make it up. Easy. He breathes out.

“Waga i--”

The girl grunts and dives for the card which rests on her own side.

She gets it.

“--o wa, miyako no tatsumi, shika zo sumu. Yo o Ujiyama to, hito wa iu nari.”
(My lowly hut is southeast from the capital. Thus I choose to live. And the world in which I live, men have named a "Mount of Gloom.")

It’s five to three now, and sure, it’s a bigger gap than before, but I can still win this! But Lance’s hands are shaking, and he’s breathing rapidly, and his eyelids feel heavy even though he got plenty of sleep last night.

But I’m okay. I’ve got this.

The reader lifts the card to her eyes.

“Michi--”

Lance attacks a card on his side, but he soon realizes that he’s the only one that went for it.

A dead card?!

His opponent silently raises her hand, signaling the reader to wait until she has passed Lance a card.

Two to five.

I’ve lost.

Lance hangs his head and lets his wide eyes gaze at nothing--only ridges on the worn tatami below him. There’s certain surreality that he can’t quite get a grasp on; that he could come so close to winning his first match, only to trip over his own toes at the finish line. He reaches to group the cards he has left so that he can swing at them without regard for which of the five he’s hitting, but he hesitates.

Why should I even try?

But a warmth floats onto his shoulder and then into his ear. “Win or lose, you’re a part of this team,” Hunk whispers, his hand soft on Lance’s shoulder. “But… I don’t want you to play karuta to win.”

Lance looks up at Hunk with weary eyes and is surprised to see the barest hint of a smile.

“Karuta is full of colors!”

There’s a brief moment where Lance sits with his jaw agape, air flowing neither in nor out of his mouth. But then his lips curl upward too. He turns back to the cards, and they’re painted blue.

The reader exhales.

“Su--”

The faint blue of the waters of Sumiyoshi Bay shoots towards the wall, and suddenly Lance is on his feet, going to retrieve his card. He doesn’t even register the look of shock on his opponent’s face.

Karuta is full of colors!

“--mi no e no, kishi ni yoru nami, yoru sae ya. Yume no kayoi ji, hito me yoku ran.”
(The waves are gathered on the shore of Sumi Bay, and in the gathered night, when in dreams I go to you, I hide from people's eyes.)

The count is two to four now, but Lance isn’t keeping track.

His eyes look over the field of azure; his own favorite card sits on his side, watching, waiting for Lance to reclaim what’s his.

“Kimi--”

There’s only one of those left!

Lance lunges.

“--ga tame, haru no no ni idete, wakana tsumu. Waga koromode ni, yuki wa furi tsutsu.”
(It is for your sake that I walk the fields in spring, gathering green herbs, while my garment's hanging sleeves are speckled with falling snow.)

Lance raises his hand into the air and, without looking, passes his card.

I don’t want to leave this painted mat!

“Ka--”

His opponent swings, but for what, Lance isn’t sure. After all, the color of the reader’s words isn’t the same as any of the cards on the field at the moment.

“--ze soyogu, Nara no ogawa no, yugure wa. Misogi zo natsu no, shirushi nari keru.”
(To Nara's brook comes evening, and the rustling winds stir the oak-trees' leaves. Not a sign of summer left but the sacred bathing there.)

Realizing her mistake, Lance’s opponent lets out a groan that coincides with the raising of Lance’s hand. It’s three to two now, and Lance is ahead.

For a brief moment, there is a silence. No other matches are still in progress, and the eyes of players and viewers alike are tracking the movement of just two arms. Lance passes a one syllable card--that way, his opponent can’t swipe at the all of her cards at once if the card being read is more than one syllable.

He’s actually proud of himself for thinking of that.

With his hand back down and the opponent’s cards reorganized, both players lean forward.

“Na--”

Lance swipes the card backwards from his side, away from the girl and nearly into another person’s head. But he gets it, and now he’s one card away from winning.

“--niwae no, ashi no karine no, hitoyo yue. Mi o tsukushite ya, koi wataru beki.”
(After one brief night--short as a piece of the reeds growing in Naniwa bay. Must I forever long for him with my whole heart, till life ends?

When he goes to retrieve his card, Lance grins at the distinct lapis waves of Naniwa Bay smiling back at him.

He thinks Hunk might be smiling at him too.

There are three cards left on the girl’s side, two of which were from Lance. And one of which he knows he can take for sure. And if he can take that one…

Lance knows he can. He knows he will. All he has to do is wait for it to be read.

The reader lifts the card and parts her lips.

Her voice is blue like the ocean.

When Lance reaches the card, he only moves it slightly. There’s a certain beauty in taking a card with delicacy over brute speed, and he thinks it’s achieved only through colors.

His opponent doesn’t wait for him to pass her a card. “Arigatou gozaimashita,” she says, bowing her head.

“A-Arigatou gozaimashita,” Lance echoes, a stutter in his words.

They both bow to the reader as well, who’s smiling as she finishes the second verse of Lance’s favorite poem.

Hunk nudges Lance. “Well?”

He grins in reply. “V-Voltron, five wins!” And with that exclamation, Lance drops his head onto Hunk’s shoulder. It’s soft. Staring at the cardless tatami now, it’s without the blue of the ocean. But somehow it still seems colorful.

Hunk turns his head and kisses Lance through his hair. “Didn’t I tell you karuta is great?”

Lance breathes in Hunk’s scent through his kimono and sighs. “Sure, but just let me take a nap on your shoulder. Feel free to kiss me more.”

There’s a chuckle, and then Lance actually feels Hunk kiss him once again, his lips lingering a little longer than before.

Karuta is full of colors. For Lance, there’s waves of cerulean and cobalt.

But he also doesn’t mind yellow.