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Keith lays his head against the library table, frowning, staring at his textbook with no less than absolute disdain.
Why did I take this class again?
He knows why. He knows, with unfortunate clarity, why there’s an art textbook in front of him open to the first page of chapter seven, History of Modern Art: The Late 1800s to the Early 1900s. He knows he chose this. He did this to himself.
Nonetheless, he lies there, cheek pressed against the wood, and asks, why.
If college worked in a way that made sense, he reasons to himself, he wouldn’t be wasting his time worrying about some art class. In fact, he wouldn’t be taking an art class at all, general education requirements wouldn’t exist, he’d only be in major classes, graduate in two years, get a job, and live his life peacefully.
If it made sense, that’s what would be happening right now. Much to his frustration, it doesn’t.
He groans. The library chatters with noise around him, clicks of cheap keyboards and department gossip. It’s impossible to focus on the textbook here, belatedly he realizes his mistake and wonders why he didn’t go up to a higher, quieter floor. Probably self sabotage, or maybe a misguided attempt at helping — he hadn’t wanted to study, and his subconscious had picked up on that and directed him someplace where he wouldn’t get any studying done anyways. Made perfect sense.
He sighs.
Great, now he’s starting to sound like Lance. As if the day could get any worse.
“Keith?” A warm voice to his right, half a torso visible. “Are you okay?”
Keith jolts, head flying up from the table. Shiro narrowly dodges the accidental headbutt, amused, a little grin at catching him off guard. Keith notices the textbook under his arm, hope flares up in his heart just as quick as he kicks it down.
“Shiro! What are you doing?” Fumbles, fumbling. “Here?”
Shiro gestures to the book under his arm. “Same thing as you, I think.”
He places the book down on the table and sits next to him, dropping his backpack onto the floor. His prosthetic hand gently settles atop his book, pulling it open to a dog-ear’d page.
Once again, Keith is met with History of Modern Art: The Late 1800s to the Early 1900s.
It doesn’t look as bad in Shiro’s textbook, somehow. Slightly less aggravating.
“I should have studied earlier but…”
“It’s the most boring thing ever invented? The professor sounds like their throat is made of sandpaper?” Keith snorts, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. “Every picture looks like someone dissolved a box full of chalk?”
Shiro chuckles, laughs softly before he rests his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “It’s not that bad. Just...Dry, sometimes. And some of the paintings are actually pretty nice to look at.”
Keith rolls his eyes. It’s not the first time Shiro has tried to get him to look on the brightside of this class, and he can’t imagine it’ll be the last. Really, he’s impressed by it; Shiro’s one of the few people not to fall asleep at this point in the semester, and he even takes notes. Legible ones.
He concedes with a soft, irritated sigh. “I guess.”
Shiro grins slyly, leaning into Keith’s space. For a second, Keith freezes, deer in the headlights, jackhammer heart.
“Better than dance, right?” He says, suggests, “Or have you changed your mind about that? Lance would love some company, I bet.”
Keith draws away with a horrified expression. “Shiro, no.”
“You know,” Shiro continues, musing, “Hunk’s been saying some pretty good things about his theater class. It's better than he expected.”
“No, no, no way, Shiro.”
“Then between art, theater, and dance…?”
He’s got him cornered and he knows it. Keith frowns as Shiro draws back with a slightly smug smile, taking his hand off his shoulder as he goes.
“I get it.” he mutters, “This is the lesser of evils, I get it, okay?”
“Right.” Shiro’s smile turns playful, a touch apologetic. “I know you do. We talked about this before we signed up.”
Despite himself, Keith smiles back. Shiro’s always known what to say and how to say it without overdoing it.
Once again since the semester has started, Keith is struck grateful that they’re in the same class. Without him, he’s fairly certain that he would have died of boredom by now, or have dropped the class in frustration and never gotten it done.
For a minute, their stares are locked together, smiles faint but matched. Something in his chest feels like a cotton ball, soft, warm despite the rumbling air conditioner.
Shiro breaks away first, awkwardly clearing his throat. “We should probably study.”
Keith blinks. “Right.”
Back to the book. Back to History of Modern Art: The Late 1800s to the Early 1900s.
He stares down at the words, willing himself to be interested. It’s for the grade. It’s this one time, and then he can forget everything and never care about Monet again.
“The last test was fairly straightforward. Names, dates, artists.” Shiro lists things off, short taps against his open book per point. Keith tries to remember the last test and comes up with a vague memory of stress, coupled with his grade, barely passing. “Basically, remember the title and the artist of the work, and the rest is simple.”
“Easier said than done.” Keith mutters, gesturing down at his book. “They all look the same to me.”
“Have you really looked at any of them?”
“Yes.” he lies.
Shiro raises an eyebrow. “All right. Then I’ll quiz you.”
He flips the pages in his book, stops and taps the top half of a page.
“What’s this one? Pretty easy, pretty famous, pretty important.”
It’s a painting of, Keith squints, leaning closer to the image, some boats, maybe on water. Probably water and boats, though he can’t tell what the background is supposed to be. The only thing he’s really sure about is that the orange dot in the middle is the sun, the glow around it meaning it's halfway to something. Everything else looks like a chalk drawing half-erased, flecks of grey and blue combining together to form something, a haze of orange and purple in the background.
He hesitates. Shiro’s patient stare feels more like a timer counting down.
“It’s…” He hazards a guess. “Sunset? Sun something? Boats?”
“Sunrise, Keith.”
Shiro pulls the book away with a sigh. Keith shivers at the sound, it seems more fond than exasperated, though mostly both.
“Well, title aside, who painted it?”
That one Keith thinks he can answer, if only because he only knows one name.
“Monet?”
Shiro smiles. “Right. Nice job.”
There’s a feeling like warm rain against his skin, brief as it is, that causes his clumsy half smile.
He thinks he might be blushing. He hopes not. It doesn’t seem like it, with the way Shiro pulls the book back towards the middle, acts completely normal, but Keith can’t actually tell. He’s been like this for so long that at this point he isn’t able to gauge how obvious he’s being. He’s fairly confident that he’s done a good job of hiding it, is doing a good job, but Shiro is also an expert at hiding things, so for all Keith really knows, Shiro’s been aware of his...Thing for him since the day it started.
The very idea stresses him out. Thankfully, Shiro’s flipped to another picture.
“This one. Not as important, but probably on the test.”
Keith looks at it in disbelief. “This is from the same time period?”
His voice is dry when he answers. “Yes.”
It doesn’t look like it, that’s for sure. For one thing, it actually makes sense, mostly, a slightly blurry painting of a man in a ridiculous hat, a woman in an even more ridiculous hat, and the both of them seated awkwardly on a boat. Keith thinks the woman looks seasick, the man unamused, he mirrors his expression without meaning to.
“Uh…” He tries to sneak a glance at the words on the other page, but Shiro blocks it all with his arm, giving him a look. “Man and Woman at Sea?”
“It’s called Boating, Keith.” Shiro shakes his head. “Who’s it by?”
“...Monet?”
“Manet.”
“That’s practically the same person!” He sputters, indignant. “How is that fair?”
“They’re not the same person, I promise.” He pulls his hand away from the page, leans into Keith’s space again to show him. “Manet and Monet are two different people. See? There are pictures of them here.”
Keith leans over to look at Shiro’s book, own book forgotten, rather, ignored. “...They look the same.”
“Keith.”
“What? They do!” He gestures at the greyscale photographs, side by side, a paragraph of text next to them detailing their lives in a way he doesn’t care about. “Look, beards, receding hairline — they’re obviously the same person.”
Shiro gives him another look, and Keith refuses to give this time, staring back at him, daring him to argue. The tension lasts all of five seconds before Shiro bursts out laughing, leaning forward, elbow holding his weight up, cheek against his palm. A wild swing of pride hits Keith square in the chest, he crosses his arms and smirks, careful with his pounding heart.
They’re lucky the first floor is always loud, because Shiro’s laugh blends into the rest of the background noise, and as it softens to snickers, Keith’s smirk smooths out into a gentler smile.
“I guess I understand what you mean.” One last huff of laughter escapes him. “They do look sort of similar.”
“Exactly.”
“Still, you better remember that they’re different people.”
He shrugs. “I’ll work on it.”
“Right. I know you can see the difference between their paintings, at least.”
“Yeah.” Keith leans over, flips the pages back to the blurry boat image, Sunrise or whatever. “Monet melted a box of chalk. Easy.”
Shiro leans closer, and a thrill runs up and down Keith’s spine as their shoulders touch. “Not exactly, but close enough. And Manet?”
“His paintings actually look like something.”
Shiro laughs again, quiet chuckles that roll from his throat. “If that works for you.”
His shoulder is warm against Keith's own, and Keith revels in the touch. In spite of himself, he leans closer, pressing his whole arm against Shiro’s while attempting to stay casual.
Shiro doesn’t say anything, nor does he move away. Instead he brings his prosthetic hand up, using it to point, soft whir of machinery blurry with the rest of the library.
He’s so close, and so comfortable, and when Shiro turns to look at him, he’s got a smile on that makes Keith ache with hope.
“Shiro! What is up— Oh! Hey Keith. Didn’t see you there.”
If he could strangle just one person on Earth, it would be Lance.
Shiro turns around in his chair, waves at Lance. Keith laments the loss, throws a glare in Lance’s direction, has it returned with a smug grin.
You don’t know anything, his brain hisses in frustration. You have the observational skills of a paperclip.
“Sooo, what are you guys doing?” He sits down in the chair to the left of him, and Keith resigns himself to the end of whatever had been happening before he showed up. “Wait, don’t tell me. I got it.”
His eyes sweep over the table, catching on the books in front of them, and then he leans in to get closer to Shiro, which also means he gets way too far into Keith’s personal space.
His grin is cheeky. “On a study date?”
Keith holds in the I wish he wants to grumble out, opting to glare at Lance again instead. He’s not ever going to let him find out about his thing for Shiro, he's not even going to risk giving him the idea. He’s seen enough of what Lance is like when he’s trying to play matchmaker to make sure it never happens to him.
He crosses his arms and waits for Shiro's answer. He expects Shiro to wave Lance off, hopefully ending the conversation in the process. That’s what he usually does when Lance questions him about anyone, he shrugs it off with a laugh, sometimes a stern no if he thinks Lance is taking it too far. It’ll sting, but he’s ready for it, and he sits there, waiting, eyes directed slightly offside, for Shiro’s inadvertent rejection.
Instead, Shiro smiles and says nothing.
The silence stretches out for so long that Lance’s grin starts to waver, then flatline, morphing into a confused frown.
“Am I right?” He asks, followed by a mumbled, “No, I can’t be.”
He pulls back to look Keith in the eye, serious and not at the same time.
“Keith, be honest with me man, Shiro’s just messing with me right now, right?”
His voice tinges desperate when he doesn’t answer. “You’re not actually on a study date together, are you?”
As good as it would feel to mock him in his face, Keith refrains, because watching his expressions shift all over the place is incredibly satisfying. The fact that Shiro hadn’t said anything against the idea helps, fills him with an immense glow, breaks his face into a sly smile.
Lance’s jaw almost unhinges.
“You guys are— but— no, you have to be messing with me right now. You’re definitely messing with me.”
Shiro doesn't answer him. Instead, he puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder, rising from the table, and Keith follows the act, getting up with him. Lance gapes at them from his seat.
“I think Keith and I are going to go catch some lunch. We’ve been here for a while.” Keith glances at the wall clock from the corner of his eye. That’s a pretty believable statement. “Do you want to come, Lance?”
He sputters, waving his hands around wildly, bewildered. Keith holds back a snicker.
“Oh, no no no no, it’s fine, totally fine! I’ll stay here, stick around, you know, I’ve got my own studying to do, no problem. Have a good date— I mean lunch. Lunch. Since you’re just messing with me.”
“Right. See you then.” Shiro grabs his book off the table, Keith follows, shoving it into his backpack. “Good luck studying.”
If Lance answers back, Keith doesn’t hear him as he’s walking away from the table, still on Shiro’s left. He walks with confidence, doesn’t dare turn back to look even though he wants to.
Right when they leave the building though, they start laughing, leaning into each other’s space, coughing up words.
“I shouldn’t have but,” Shiro shakes his head, “his face.”
“It was great.” Keith clutches his stomach, tries to breathe. “Perfect.”
Shiro’s hand is still burning on his shoulder, heat on his skin, and he grins wide, hot flush from laughter on his cheeks.
“You know,” Shiro says as they’re winding down from the high, halfway across the campus, aimless, “we should do this again sometime.”
Do what again, Keith wants to ask, hoping that it still makes sense for him to be red-faced.
Instead, staring straight ahead, he answers with a nonchalant, “Sounds good.”
“Yeah?”
Shiro’s voice is softer now, breathy, almost, and Keith tries to tell himself it’s from laughing too much.
“Yeah.”
“Guess it’s a date then.”
His head whips around. Shiro smiles at him, pink.
Keith nods.
“It...Is.” He nods again, starts to smile, bursts into a grin. “A date. Yeah.”
Shiro grins back, blooming pinker. “Great. I’ll text you?”
“Yeah. Please. Whenever.”
“Okay.” He turns but doesn’t break eye contact. “Then...See you later, Keith.”
“See you later, Shiro.”
The wind brushes against him as he watches him go, dazed, starstruck, unbearably bright like the afternoon sun.
It’s been a good day.