Archive of Our Own ^beta

以心伝心 (ishin-denshin): what the mind thinks, the heart transmits

It had taken Keith a while to realize that Shiro was euphemistic when he spoke about his parents: he never lied per se, he just… was careful in his word choice. So Keith learned to be careful too, in what he said to others, in how he asked questions. Keith still remembers the day Shiro stopped, half way through folding a pile of laundry, weeks before Kerberos, to look at Keith with eyes that were searching and confused before he realized that Keith was copying his way of speaking around his parents. That Keith knew what Shiro was doing, and was playing along.

The man had smiled, and kissed Keith’s forehead, and then they hadn’t said anything else on the subject.

I’ll always know where they’ll be, he’d say when someone asked about his parents. Or I had to let them go, but I’ve made peace with it now. He saw him once tell his (ex-)boyfriend You don’t know what it’s like living with the memories. Keith doubts the man even knew Shiro’s parents were still alive.

And that, somehow, is the part that hurts: that Takashi Shirogane had been prepared to marry a man who didn’t even hear what he was truly saying, between the lines, no attempt to understand the situation without words. That Shiro’s relationship with his parents was so tortured and complex, that he would have lived that lie for the rest of his life without anyone knowing his silent pain.

“Fuck,” he hears from the bedroom, Keith finishing his drink before putting his cup in the dishwasher and setting it to run. “Fuck!” He leans against the doorway as he watches newly promoted Rear Admiral Takashi Shirogane, Defender of the Universe, leader of the Voltron Coalition, former leader of Voltron, former Black Paladin, Captain of the IGF-Atlas, Champion of the Galra, struggle with what to pack. Shiro looks up at him, uniform jacket in his hand, and says, “Murder me.” His husband is such a mess.

“Give me that,” Keith says smoothly, moving to take Shiro’s spot. He picks up what’s been flung onto the bed to make a neat pile instead, Shiro sitting beside him to watch as Keith starts to fold things or toss them to the floor to put back in the closet. “Everything you’ve been through and this is what breaks you?”

“I can’t do this, Keith,” and his tone is light but taking on that edge of true anxiety and panic; looking over, he sees Shiro has his head in his hand, eyes closed. “The war is suppose to be over.”

At another time he’d make a joke about that, about how the thing that had broken him after years of imprisonment and fighting and literally dying — twice! — was going back to the city of his birth, but Keith knows better. He’s lived his life alongside Shiro long enough to know this is, in fact, the hardest thing for the man to do.

“We’ll go,” Keith says gently, “we’ll get our photo taken, we’ll bow at some places, you’ll get awards or whatever, we’ll have the most awkward dinner with your parents in the universe, then we’ll leave.” He sits beside Shiro, wrapping him in his arms. “I believe in you.”

Shiro presses his face into Keith’s neck, breathing deeply; he can hear him mentally counting to calm himself.

“We’ll have exit plans,” Keith reminds when Shiro has definitely finished counting but not started talking yet. “Hell, I’m sure Mom can get Kolivan to call in some top need that calls us away if you really cannot do this.”

His husband pulls back, sad and defeated, and asks, “Would that make me a coward?”

Instead of answering, Keith kisses him, slow and gentle, working Shiro’s mouth open until he feels an arm come around him to steady them. “No,” Keith breathes. “I could never think you cowardly.”

“But I am,” Shiro protests so Keith kisses him again.

Shiro sits between Keith’s legs draped over his shoulders, head back in his husband’s lap, as Keith brings Black in to land at the hangar the city had designated for them. It’s been nearly fifteen years, Keith knows, since Shiro has been back, both too long and not long enough. They had imagined, during the war, a time when they could come together, just the two of them, and hide away in Japan: no one knowing who they are, just a local man and his foreign boyfriend exploring the country, its cities and nature and shrines. Shiro had done his best to teach Keith the right words in his dialect, the customs unique to his area, all these little quirks that came easily to him but he’d never had another to share with, once he left Japan. Keith knows Shiro is honoring him when he shares these things with him, and he knows how weighty that is.

They change in the back of the lion from their T-shirts and jeans into their kimono and haori: Shiro’s is a beautiful black jacket over his dark patterned kimono, Keith’s a deep red jacket over his plain black kimono, both made of exquisite material that Keith didn’t want to imagine the laundering needs of. The city had offered to supply their clothing and have someone dress them, but Shiro had bristled at the idea.

“It’s not been that long,” he’d gritted to Keith though he knows his husband probably wrote back a polite and humble response about how that wouldn’t be necessary and they couldn’t possibly impose on them like that.

The tabi and zori are still a bit awkward to Keith but Shiro is his focus so he can do this, following him out of Black to the waiting reception. Keith follows Shiro’s lead in whom to bow to and how deeply, glad that he’d managed to convince Shiro that it was good to speak Japanese at home, in his dialect at his normal speed, so that Keith could keep up with the conversation. They’re led out into the sunlight, carefully surrounded by handlers, as they make their way to the larger welcoming committee on a small stage.

Fancy men are introduced in lavish clothing, Keith focusing on keeping his face appropriately neutral and reading Shiro’s body language. Shiro of course understands who these men are, one of them even making a comment about having known of Shiro when he went to school here. Shiro introduces Keith formally, calm and collected, and the reaction to being presented with a Japanese man’s husband on the faces of those around them is almost enough to make Keith feel good, even if it was bullshit: Keith had needed his own visa to come, separate from Shiro, because their marriage wasn’t good enough for the government to give him a spousal visa. Utter nonsense.

But there are people watching — a lot of people — and none of this was new information to Keith. This was about Shiro, about being strong for Shiro, about getting both of them through today until they could be alone and bitch about what they’d had to put up with. He does his best to focus on listening to the way those around them speak, appreciating the fine clothing and beautiful architecture, the happy gaggle of children off to the side clearly waiting to ask their hometown hero for an autograph. Maybe one of them was queer, and this moment would stick in their mind, and they’d have an easier time growing up than his husband had had. That makes Keith happy to think about.

“We of course had to honor not just you, Admiral Shirogane, but also your family with your triumphant return at the end of the war.” That makes Shiro tense, Keith taking half a step closer to him.

“You show me more honor than I am worthy of,” Shiro protests. “I am nothing more than a humble child of Kyoto who did what he had to.”

“Your father raised you well,” the man who had known Shiro from childhood comments and yup there’s the confirmation that their worst case scenario had come early, Keith catching movement out of the corner of his eye.

“I honor my parents always with my conduct,” Shiro manages though Keith can hear the grit in his words, how much effort it takes to force them out of his mouth.

“Takashi-san,” and the voice is deeper than Keith had expected, the man thin and aged but still clearly a man of the military; he’s a bit shorter than Shiro, with darker skin contrasted by his silver hair, but the facial structure is the same without a doubt: Katsuhito Shirogane.

“O-tōsama.” Shiro swallows hard, stepping forward to bow more formally than he has all day. Something is muttered, between the two men, that Keith doesn’t catch, but it ends with Shiro moving to his knees to bow again, bending down until his chest presses to his legs, his hand sliding down his thigh to the ground. When he sits back, he looks up into his father’s face, and Keith immediately understands more than ever the way Shiro spoke about his father.

This was a power move, to make the most revered man in the universe bow before his own father.

“O-kāsama,” and Shiro repeats the move towards his mother, Etsuko née Mizutani standing just behind her husband much like Keith had been. Her beauty is evident in her long gray hair and pale skin, her features delicate, all offset by her patterned kimono that seems to shine in the sunlight, shot through with a silvery thread.

To look at her feels safe, until Keith catches his father-in-law’s eyes; immediately his body clenches.

“Absolute bastard,” Shiro murmurs once they’re alone in their hotel room, having survived the day and tour and blessings at the shrine. Shiro’s parents hadn’t been near them for long though the air had still been permeated by their presence as they’d moved throughout the city. “I should have known.”

“It is what it is,” Keith tries to soothe, moving to stand before Shiro sat on the bed, rubbing his shoulders. His husband had been tense the whole car ride here, quiet and lost in his own thoughts. “It wasn’t right but you did so well.”

“Saikeirei,” Shiro says as if doing a mimic and Keith thinks he’s making fun of his father. “You were raised right. Yeah, by Okan, he’s not the emperor. Expecting me to apologize — me!” and Shiro looks at Keith with hurt and anger and resentment in his eyes. “Me! Like I’m the fucking problem here!”

“You’re not,” Keith whispers, even though he knows his part in this isn’t to offer ideas or real feedback, only to allow his husband to get this out of his system. That Shiro, who is only ever calm and level headed and rational and patient to his team and at the garrison, is those things because of his upbringing. Because of what he wasn’t given, and what he left behind. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

Shiro grips him tight, pulling Keith close, to press into his clothing and take deep breaths. “I will never, ever, apologize for being queer or chronically ill or disabled or becoming a pilot,” Shiro says, “nor for marrying you. You are the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.” He pulls back to meet Keith’s eyes and ask, “You know that, right?”

He does. He knows Shiro loves him more than fairy tale characters love one another, more than mythical couples love one another. Keith knows Shiro would destroy the universe if it meant saving Keith, because he would do the same for him. “I do, Takashi. Let’s get you out of these clothes.”

Their socks and jackets are away when there’s a knock at the door, Shiro going to get it, Keith doing his best to straighten the bed’s covering should they now have to entertain company.

“Okan?” Shiro’s voice is quiet, easy to miss, but Keith freezes at his word — he’d said it was like Mom or Mama though typically only used by children or when in private.

A hushed voice whispers back and Keith turns to see Shiro step aside, his mother stepping in.

She looks shorter now than she had during the day, beside her son who towers over her; Keith wonders how much taller than her he had been, before his Galra puberty. Her kimono is different, less shimmer and silver, though still patterned and inviting. Her hair is also different, less fancy formal, more something Keith can imagine her doing easily on her own for sitting at her calligraphy. Her eyes fall to Keith immediately, and she smiles.

“Please,” Shiro says, hand gently falling to her back as he gestures with his head, “sit wherever you are most comfortable.”

“Taka-chan,” and it’s strange to hear Shiro’s forgotten nickname from his mother’s lips, the name she called him growing up. Shiro blushes, catching Keith’s eye and smiling.

He’s happy, Keith realizes. He’s really, really happy to have his mother here.

In his best pronunciation, Keith bows from across the low table and says, “You honor us with your presence, O-kāhan.” That makes the woman and her son both smile, his mother-in-law turning to Shiro.

“You married a good man then.” It’s both a question and a declaration.

“The very best,” Shiro says, blushing and smiling and happier than Keith has seen him since before the war.

The woman sits, gesturing to the head of the table as she looks at her son, Keith joining across from her to sit on Shiro’s right side. That pleases her, winning him a little nod of her head.

“Would you like tea, Mother?” Keith asks. Shiro beams.

“We have sweets as well,” her son adds, “our teeth will rot out of our heads before we leave.”

“In a little bit,” she assures, taking her son’s hand and drinking him in like she can’t get enough of him. Keith recognizes the look from his own mother. “How different you are now, Taka-chan, and how different you look.” She reaches up to touch his white hair, lighter than her own, Shiro leaning into the touch. Keith feels a bit like a third wheel until the woman turns to him and asks, “Have you known my son for a long time?”

“Yes,” Keith answers, “from before he went to… how do you say?”

“The moons of Pluto,” Shiro supplies. “Kerberos.”

“My son,” she sighs, “the pilot,” like she can’t believe it. “I was devastated when they announced the crew had been lost. It broke my heart, to think of Taka-chan forever so far from me: a mother should never have to mourn her child.”

“I’m sorry,” Shiro whispers, looking between her and Keith. “I hurt the two most important people in the universe when I left.”

“You didn’t know,” Keith rebuts. “You never would have risked it, if you had.” Across the table, he gets another nod of approval.

“I like him,” the woman says to Shiro, making Keith blush. Between having his mother-in-law’s approval and his need to be praised by Shiro — perhaps a need to be praised by any Shirogane — he burns inside even before Shiro’s smirk of love and adoration. “And his Japanese is very good, you taught him I presume? Foreigners do not often learn our dialect nor the customs of Kyoto.”

“I taught him as my mother taught me, though he was the better student.”

The woman leans forward, as if now confiding in Keith, “He was a very stubborn child.” She reaches out to touch her son's cheek, Shiro closing his eyes. “But he was my very stubborn child and I have always loved him.”

“Okan,” and Shiro almost whines the word, as a child would, something between embarrassment and a need for more.

“Please tell me more,” and she looks at Keith like he’s a fascinating person filled with interesting stories. Maybe, to her, he is. “I wish to learn more about my son’s husband.”

Keith swallows something stuck in his throat, mind racing with where to start. “Uh, I do not know what to say. I am much less impressive than Takashi.”

“Nonsense,” Shiro interrupts, turning to his mother. “I met him right after I became an officer. He was a born pilot; he was like my junior, though I always wanted him to become greater than I was. And now he is.” Shiro smiles at Keith, pleased with himself. “I made it through the war, because of him.” He reaches across himself to take Keith’s hand, squeezing. “I love him and he honors me by sharing in my life.”

The woman smiles and the softness of her face is like Shiro’s, especially back at the garrison before Kerberos — easy and natural, bubbling up from inside, the smile Keith fell in love with as a sixteen year old boy lost in a cruel world. “Will you say your name for me? In English.”

“Keith.”

She turns her head towards her son. “Ke-i-tu,” Shiro says, the katakana equivalent.

“Ke-i-tu.” She nods. “But there is a Japanese name now?”

“Akira,” Keith says.

“Akira,” she repeats dreamily. “Now I have Taka-chan, and Aki-chan.” She places her hands, folded, in her lap, turning to her son. “Tea and sweets would be lovely.”

“I'll do it,” Keith gets in, standing quickly. “You should spend time with your mother,” he adds at Shiro’s raised eyebrow. Beside, he knows how to boil the water, setting the kettle down to work and collecting what he’d need to bring to the table, the two Shirogane behind him watching.

The mood is light until Shiro dares to ask, “Does Father know you are here?”

“Takashi-chan,” and it’s the closest to a scold he’s heard from her yet, “do not ask questions you know the answer to, the mood is convivial and pleasant.”

“Does that mean you will not ask after my arm or illness?”

“I would not wish to make you or your husband uncomfortable.” Keith moves to the table with a tray of sweets and several tea options, listening to the kettle click off. “You have never had to speak to me about anything you did not wish to.” It’s so like the conversations Keith has had with Shiro, the older man always understanding and patient.

“I know.” Keith comes back with the teapot, cups, and kettle, setting it down before Shiro. “Which tea, Mama?” The woman selects a box, Shiro making the pot while Keith opens the sweets. “You can ask, if you would like to. You will not upset us.”

The woman takes a deep breath and Keith realizes she’s watching how easily her son sets about his task of preparing the tea with only one arm, Keith helping on instinct where needed.

The question isn’t what he’d expected, nor Shiro judging from his reaction. “How much time will the two of you have in your marriage?” It’s an indirect question but still rather to the point.

Shiro settles back, looking at Keith, and Keith meets his gaze, knowing he’s thinking about the clone, about the astral plane, about their fight. Keith reaches out a hand to rest on what remains of Shiro’s right arm, squeezing. “There is no end in sight,” he says, not looking away from his husband’s eyes.

“My illness is gone,” Shiro elaborates, turning to his mother. “This is not the body of the son you gave birth to, Mama: the Galra experimented on me and cloned me, changing my genetics along the way. They took many things from me.”

“Taka-chan…,” but she doesn’t seem to know what to say, looking to Keith as if he might have the answer. Maybe he does.

“His soul was held in the Black Lion, and reunited later with the body of the clone: he is still Takashi Shirogane even if his body is new.”

“Most bizarre,” and she really captures the sentiment with that. “And your arm?”

“I lost it when I was taken prisoner, replaced with a prosthetic. I have two prosthetics, now, but I don’t use them when I’m with Aki-chan,” and it sounds so natural the way Shiro immediately uses the nickname his mother had given him, accepting him into the family. He also glosses over their fight but it feels… right. These are the facts, after all. “I no longer think about it, though I know others look at me and see only my amputation and hair and scars.” Shiro turns to Keith, smiling. “But not Aki-chan.” He gestures to the teapot and Keith pours them each a cup, handing the first to his mother-in-law.

“He will ask.” There’s no need to say who she means.

“Of course he will.”

“I can only do so much.” She seems sad at that, defeated almost. Keith can see the heartbreak in Shiro at that, and feels a little of it too. Shiro’s mother is, so far, as kind and loving as Shiro had described her as.

“You do not have to protect me, Mama: I am no longer a child. I am a man, I have performed my military service, I have been through a war, I have my own family, I am the one who should be protecting you.”

They silently drink their tea after that, a fine green that makes Keith hum in delight: it’s not bitter at all, and it moves across his tongue as opposite as possible to the garrison’s mess hall coffee he’d survived on for years. Keith sees his mother-in-law looking at the sweets, moving to hold out one box he’d really liked towards her. She smiles, taking one.

“My husband is a good man,” she says, Shiro stiffening as he sets down his tea, though she doesn’t look at him. Her eyes are trained on Keith. “There was an… accident, before Taka-chan was born. It changed him. He is a man of tradition and always has been. He may not seem it, but he has good intentions.” Keith tries hard not to look at Shiro, focusing on what’s in front of him, but he can’t help the way his eyes dart to the slightly bowed head of his husband. “My husband and son long ago stopped seeing eye to eye. My role as wife and mother was to smooth their edges. I did what I could.”

“You did more than you had to, Mama,” Shiro says, tension in his voice. “My issues were never with you.”

“Your father truly wants to see you,” she soothes but Shiro shakes his head. “He loves you,” she tries instead.

“I know he does.” Shiro lifts his cup to his lips, taking a small sip before setting it down. “I love him too, even if I am a failure of a son.”

“No!” she protests loudly, taking Shiro’s hand in hers. “No! Do not ever say that about yourself.” She reaches out, across the table, and Keith realizes she wants his hand, giving in and feeling her smooth skin against his calloused fingers. “You are an honor to have as my son. You saved the universe, with this man by your side, and now you will make a family together. In galaxies farther away than I can imagine, people are safe because of you. You are not a failure, Takashi-chan, just because you are not the son your father had expected.

“We are not given the parents or children we want, but the parents and children who challenge us. You have done your best and that is all that can be asked of you.” Keith thinks the woman is about to cry. “You are the greatest achievement of my life and it has been an honor to be your mother: never disgrace me again by speaking ill of yourself.”

“Mama,” and Shiro shifts to hold her, the woman keeping her grip on Keith as she embraces her son. As much as Shiro looked like his father, it was his mother he took after in how he carried himself, in the way emotions flittered across his face, in his quiet strength that made him him. Sometimes with Krolia, Keith still had issues, moments of resentment that sprang up, flashes of guilt across her face for all that she missed, but he knows she loves him and he loves her. They did what they had to and the universe brought them back together, to heal and start again.

Perhaps this was Shiro’s chance, at something similar.

“My child,” his mother-in-law soothes, rubbing her son’s back. “My most beautiful son I could have been blessed with.”

Shiro is laying on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling, when Keith emerges from the bathroom. “Well that was emotionally charged,” he deadpans. Shiro nods.

Keith settles in beside him, moving to push himself under Shiro’s arm stump, kissing and touching everywhere he can, gently, to calm Shiro and his racing mind, anxiety and self-hate evident in the clench of his jaw and the tightness of his muscles.

“Your mother is incredible,” and that makes Shiro smile, a little, though he still doesn’t meet his husband’s eyes.

“Mama was my best friend for many years. When I became ill, I couldn’t play with the other children, so she played with me instead. She devoted herself to me but never once made me feel like a burden. I told her, when I was eight, that I liked boys and she held me in her arms and told me she would always love me, no matter what, because I was her most beautiful son.” Shiro gives a wet sigh; Keith doesn’t move to see if he’s crying. “It was always easy, with her.”

There’s a long stretch of silence after that, Keith imagining Shiro as a little boy in his mother’s arms, learning traditions from her that he later taught Keith.

“I was jealous of you,” Keith admits, “when you’d tell me stories of her.” That makes Shiro turn in bed, rolling to face him, his back towards the window where moonlight and light pollution stream in past the blinds. “I didn’t know what a mother was like; Dad was great, I never wanted for anything, but I still wondered. Because she had been there, at some point, and then she wasn’t. So when you’d talk about your mother–“ he brushes hair from Shiro’s eyes that are intensely watching him “–those stories were everything to me: the love, the care, the gentleness, just what I’d always imagined a mother might be but had no confirmation of.

“I remember my father once jokingly saying to one of his friends, you can’t trust a man who isn’t a mama’s boy at heart, because a man needs to love his mother to know how to care about people.” Keith smiles though Shiro frowns. “I obviously didn’t know my mother, so felt like maybe that was why I struggled with others, but you clearly loved yours. And I feel like Dad would say, that’s why you’ve always been so good at caring for other people.”

“I didn’t know,” Shiro whispers. “You didn’t tell me.”

“It wasn’t my place,” Keith says. “I wasn’t trying to upset you. I only meant I can see how much you love her and are happy with her, and that makes me happy. When I’m with Krolia sometimes, or see you with her, it makes me think of you with your mother. These are good things,” Keith reiterates. “I love how much you love your mother, just as you love how much I love my mother.”

His husband’s eyes fall closed, tension still in his face even as he sighs. “I'm tired,” Shiro murmurs and Keith understands how deeply he means it that he’s not able to finish their conversation now: emotional exhaustion was something else. “Stay with me.” He knows he means more than just beside him in bed.

“Of course,” and Keith leans in to kiss him tenderly. “There is nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Shiro drives them in an old fashioned car that’s sleek and black and makes Keith want to drool even as the inverted driver’s seat weirds him out slightly. “You get used to it,” Shiro had commented as he’d adjusted his prosthetic, and Keith’s sure he will but he’s not sure he wants to, as they set out on what feels like the wrong side of the road.

They’re silent until they get out of Kyoto proper, Keith mesmerized by the changing landscape around him. He was a child of the desert, of sand that went on endlessly, of red and rock and cacti. This, though, this is tropical and lush and green, so fucking green, everywhere. They’d visited planets like this, sure, Olkari had dense nature, but it wasn’t the same in some way, it wasn’t Earth dense nature, it wasn’t the place where Shiro had grown up dense nature.

“You doing alright over there?” Shiro asks finally.

“It’s beautiful here,” Keith says without hesitation, because with Shiro he can be vulnerable. He hears his husband chuckle.

“It is, isn’t it? I missed it so much, when I got to the garrison. The desert is beautiful too, but not like this.”

“Where are we going again?” Shiro has shown him the maps, discussed the history of the provinces and the landscape of the prefecture, but there was so much to remember that Keith couldn’t keep it all straight.

“We’re heading to Uji to stop before carrying on to Ujitawara.” Thank all above that Shiro is incredibly patient with Keith’s thick brain absorbing what to him is boring and common. “Uji is a major city, it’ll be filled with tourists. Ujitawara is more a village where my father’s parents had their country house, because it was quieter.”

“And your mother’s parents, they lived west of here?” He looks over to see Shiro smiling.

“Yup, in Ōyamazaki. It’s not too far from here; if we have time, we can visit there too.”

“If not, we can go next time.” That makes Shiro smile wider, reaching over to pat Keith’s thigh.

“Next time.”

“You gonna tell me about this retro car?” It reminded Keith of magazines he’d loved as a teenager, the older cars stunning compared to the newer, faster models: these weren’t for speed, they were for luxury.

“It was Okan’s father’s.” Shiro pets the dashboard. “I learned to drive in this precious clunker, from my mother out in the countryside, and loved every minute of it. O-jiisan left it to me, when he died, even though I was fifteen and it probably should have gone to Okan.” He sighs. “I think he didn’t want O-tōhan to do something with it, it’s incredibly expensive and impractical to own a car in Japan, but he loved this car and I loved it too.

“Ya know,” Shiro comments as they exit the highway, “this is the first time I’ve legally driven this beauty.”

“The real travesty,” Keith snorts and his husband laughs. “We’ll have to come back just for this.”

“Think she’s prettier than my car you stole?” Shiro teases.

“Oh! Absolutely!” Vehicles in the desert are practical and high-tech, garrison issued ones more so. This though is design and form over function. “I’d let you fuck me in this car any time.” As intended, that makes Shiro blush and grin at once, pushing his tongue into his cheek to tease. “How do you say that in Japanese?”

Shiro’s laugh echoes through the car. “Oh no! I’m not teaching you that!” It’s worth it, just to see him relax.

“Mama,” and Shiro bends to hug his mother, stepping aside to remove his shoes as Keith hugs her.

“I hope your trip was calm, and am glad you arrived safely.” She cups Keith’s face before releasing him so he can remove his shoes too, following the pair deeper into the house.

“It was a pleasure to finally take Grandfather’s car out for a drive. Aki-chan enjoyed seeing the countryside.”

“If you are able, you should see Ōyamazaki before you leave.”

Shiro laughs, looking around what for him must be a familiar space though for Keith it’s overwhelming in its newness. “We’ve already discussed that. When will Father be home?”

“In about an hour.” Shiro’s mother smiles at both of them. “I can trust you to give the tour and change within that time? Yes?”

“Yes, Mama,” and Shiro rolls his eyes, smirking at Keith as he takes his hand. “Let me show you around.”

The rooms are spacious and mostly empty, the flooring and walls the same throughout, dark wood accents everywhere there isn’t creamy beige. There’s an internal courtyard with a delicate Japanese maple tree, and a butsudan more elaborate than what they have at home, before the bedrooms. Shiro leads Keith into what must have been his room as a child, which looks out into trees and moss covered ground. There’s the sound of a babbling brook nearby, Shiro collapsing on a bed.

On a twin bed.

“Unbelievable.” Shiro sighs as he lays back, removing his prosthetic and closing his eyes, Keith settling his jacket on the other twin bed.

“Not to be crude,” Keith asks, “but is this more a reflection on our marriage or your parents’?” Shiro snorts.

“Just have to make it to tomorrow afternoon.” Keith puts their suitcase in between them, studying Shiro who is both relaxed and stiff at once, as if conflicted on what to feel first. His husband looks at him with a determined set to his face, like he used to have as they prepared for battle. “Just have to make it to then.”

“I know you will be amazing.” Keith moves to stand over him, cupping his husband’s face.

“I wish I had your confidence in me.”

“It’s why we’re such a good pair,” Keith jokes: he believed in Shiro and Shiro believed in him.

“Mmmm.” Shiro looks at him with a studying gaze, as if trying to see inside Keith and how he was handling everything. “You sure you’ll be alright?”

“Yes,” Keith breathes for what feels like the thousandth time, sitting on Shiro’s lap and wrapping his arms around those broad shoulders he loves so much, Shiro drawing him close to cuddle. “I have been through so much shit in my life, and know exactly what we’re getting into to. Besides, we’re in this together.” He presses their faces together. “I’m not leaving you, not ever.”

“I wish I could lay you out and show you how much you mean to me,” Shiro whispers, kissing around Keith’s face.

“I mean,” and Keith looks at his watch over Shiro’s shoulder, “you could set a timer and I could promise to be quiet — unless that’d be disrespectful, to your mother.”

Shiro’s eyes fall closed, his face muscles moving in that way Keith knows means he’s running through the scenarios. “She is giving us privacy, to prepare for dinner.” Gently they lay back on the bed, Keith following Shiro. “A little making out and rutting would help me get through this arduous mission ahead,” and the glint in his eyes says trouble.

They’ve twenty minutes left, Shiro opening the door to gently call, “Mama?” as Keith pulls out their outfits that Shiro had selected before they left Kyoto, both men in their first layers already.

“Yes?” She’s at the door, smiling, all warm honey. Her outfit is different, more formal now in layered silks, her hair slicked back in that quintessentially Japanese look that sometimes Shiro did to Keith’s hair, making them both laugh. “Shall I assist my children in their dressing?” She says it so calmly, so smoothly, that it makes Keith shiver: my children.

He stands and bows his head, smiling. “That would be appreciated, Mama: I am still learning.” Shiro looks stunned over his mother’s head, like he’s never loved Keith more.

“Of course, let me help.” She only pauses to appreciate the pieces of his outfit, turning once to look at Shiro and raise an eyebrow though she says nothing.

Shiro had explained the differences in the pieces, in how the material and color and patterns and layering showed their formality. He’d talked about the specifics of Kyoto, of his parents’ upbringing, his father from a family that stuck deeply to traditions and his mother a retired geiko trained in the traditional arts of her home city. His husband had gone back and forth for a while on what to put Keith in before settling on three layers with matching patterns, going from white on the innermost layer to red in the middle to black on the outside. Shiro had explained what the style was called but Keith can’t recall it now, moving with his mother-in-law as she dresses him.

“You were originally the Red Paladin, yes?” she asks as she smoothes down the fabric across Keith’s chest.

“Yes, the Red Paladin is the main support for the Black Paladin, who leads Voltron: Taka-chan.”

“I could trust no one else,” Shiro says from the other bed where he was sat, reattaching his prosthetic, “to lead the team in my absence. Aki-chan made me proud with his conduct and what he led the team to do.”

His mother-in-law — Okan, she was his second mother now — runs her fingers from the red to black. “This is why Aki-chan often wears black and red?” and she looks at Keith with soft love, warming him.

“It is,” Shiro answers for him. “Plus he looks wonderful in red in a way I never could.” Okan leans up to kiss his cheek, Keith blushing, before she turns to her son. “I can dress myself if other duties call.”

“That is your prosthetic,” she answers instead, not quite a question.

“Yes.” Shiro hesitates, looking at Keith before back at his mother. “I thought this would be appropriate.” Keith wonders if Okan understands that he means how uncomfortable he is, spending extended time with his father.

For a long moment no one speaks.

Then Okan moves slightly, with a hesitation, her hands reached out towards her son. “My child.”

“Mama,” Shiro calls out in return, pulling her to him to hold — or, rather, for her to hold him, sat on the bed. Keith catches his eye over Okan’s shoulder, Shiro allowing him to share in this private moment, because they share these things now. “Mama, it is quite alright.”

“Is it?” she asks.

“It is.” Shiro kisses her cheek. “I am alive. I have Aki-chan. I have you.” He pulls back and smiles. “That is what matters, yes?”

The woman nods; Keith steps forward to place his hands on her shoulders. She nods again. “That is what matters.”

Both Shiro and his father are in black kimono, mon decorating the top of the silk with the design relegated to the bottom of the fabric. It’s easy to see the family resemblance between them, in the way Shiro holds his jaw, in the memories of him as an officer before and during the war. Keith had always thought the juxtaposition of Shiro the stiff officer and Shiro the warm friend a strange dichotomy but now he can see, each is a reflection of one parent or the other.

He’s glad he’d insisted on practicing at home, sitting properly on the floor. It had come instinctually to Shiro, as if he’d never stopped sitting like this, but Keith had had long periods where he couldn’t feel his legs after sitting or else hurting his knees and ankles. And that was before they had moved on to how to move to sit and stand, which he knows is just as important.

Often times, Shiro had been joyless while they practiced: other Japanese traditions brought smiles to his face, laughing as Keith did his best, but this had pained him in a way. Keith had understood, deep down, that it was best to not comment. That if Shiro truly didn’t want to do this, he would have stopped Keith; now he can see it’s because it brought back meals like this to his husband’s mind.

His father-in-law is at the head of the table, his wife to his right, his son to his left. Shiro often insisted on having Keith to his right, when he sat at the head of the table, and now he sees it’s some sort of echo of his parents, of a sense of this is where the head of the house places his spouse to show honor and respect.

Keith had thought it was so they didn’t elbow each other while eating.

The meal is a lot of silence, Keith beside Shiro, observing him and Okan across from them. They’re both more reserved than before in a way that Keith thinks they might not even be cognizant of, automatically folding in on themselves to make room for Katsuhito Shirogane.

But with each new dish that Keith tries, Okan asks if he likes it and he agrees enthusiastically, because it’s polite and because it is genuinely delicious. Shiro can’t cook for shit, Keith has seen him fuck up boiling water, but there’s a few Japanese dishes that he nails like he’s a professional chef and Keith can see that it’s memories of his mother that guide him through. He wonders if they used to cook together, before his father came home, laughing in the kitchen as they prepared for a silent meal.

“What is Akira Kogane’s rank in the Galaxy Garrison?” the elder man asks. Shiro stiffens; Keith knows it’s at the use of his unmarried name.

Keith has been insulted much worse by people with less reason. “Commander, O-tōsama.”

“Hmm.”

“He is a senior officer of the Blades of Marmora,” Shiro adds, no smile to his face. “Equivalent to a general or admiral.” The Blades had a lot less ranks so it’s never struck Keith as being as impressive as a garrison admiral, but Shiro likes to boast occasionally, and to his father it is expected.

“We both carry titles and ranks from multiple galaxies and organizations,” Keith adds, because he likes to boast about his husband as well, and maybe the elder man needed reminding of just how impressive the universe found his son, its savior.

“Hmm.” Shiro had once told Keith that often, talking to his father was less productive than talking to a brick wall, which was why Keith’s morose silence as a moody teenager had never bothered Shiro. He gets it now.

They fall back into silence, Keith assuming they must be at least half way through the meal, which means he’s so close to getting Shiro from here, to their room, to comfort him and hold him and make love to–

“Akira was almost made emperor of the Galra.”

He splutters at Shiro’s announcement, almost choking. Okan’s eyes go wide, between them. His father-in-law raises an eyebrow.

“My husband refused,” and there is something smug to Shiro’s voice, his eyes cast down as he lifts his cup to his lips.

He’s shaming his father: the man is shaming his father.

Takashi Shirogane — a man of honor, and respect, and civility, of filial piety and ancestor worship, of always holding himself back for the comfort of others, a man who could recite Miyamoto Musashi’s principles from Dokkōdō without hesitation, who could engage in deep discussions about Taoism’s ethics and Buddhism’s middle way and Shinto’s natural order — is actively shaming his father.

It’s the most aggressive thing he’s ever seen the man do, and he’s doing it for Keith.

His father-in-law’s response is low enough that Keith doesn’t hear it.

Shiro does, though, because he rises immediately, without a sound or look, bowing once towards his mother before turning his back on the table and moving outside immediately, slamming the screen door shut behind him. In years of smiling through diplomatic events and cultural missteps and homophobic comments, Keith has never once seen Shiro behave like this.

“Everyone has their limit,” he’d tell Keith as explanation for why he put up with so much.

The limit is his father.

“Hmm,” is all the response the elder man gives, looking almost pleased with himself at his son’s outburst. Okan beside him seems smaller — defeated. Keith can see her pain, at the wedge between her husband and son, at their behavior, at her child’s hurt.

Shiro needs time to cool down; Keith can soothe Okan now, not really giving two shits what his father-in-law had said.

“It was an honor when they offered,” he begins towards Okan, “but the ways of the Galra had to change.” Shiro had supported him in the decision, even as he’d teased him mercilessly for weeks after, addressing him as an emperor in Japanese. “The time of the empire had come to an end; a new government is being formed instead.”

“Why?” his father-in-law asks, the first time he’s addressed Keith directly.

“The empire had run its course and outlived its usefulness. What more did we need to participate in the god-like worship of the emperor? Colonizing others in the name of the empire, to ‘improve’ them?” Keith shrugs even as his father-in-law tenses, Okan looking back and forth between the two. “I could not participate in supporting that.”

What had been intended as comfort to Okan is clearly a miscalculation as his father-in-law rises, quitting the room to go outside as well.

Keith realizes his mistake: he’d only meant the Galra empire but it had probably sounded like an attack on Japan. “I didn’t mean–”

Okan smiles weakly at him. “I know you did not.” She reaches across the table to take his hand. “I think what you did was very brave and strong. Not many would turn down such a chance.” She squeezes his hand. “I can see why Taka-chan and Aki-chan are well matched: you both earn power from your conduct but do not allow it to go to your head.

“Once, my husband would have congratulated you for your decision.” Okan releases his hand, shifting in her seat. “The man he was before the accident… Taka-chan is who his father had been.”

“Can you tell me what happened?” She’d mentioned the accident before but hadn’t elaborated, and Keith assumed Shiro knew the story though he’s never mentioned it.

“It was during a training,” Okan says. “He was in the navy, had wanted Taka-chan to follow him, to serve Japan. My husband had been an officer, well respected by his sailors who loved him dearly.” That did sound an awful lot like Shiro, especially before Kerberos: the way cadets and junior officers, even senior ones, had respected and fawned over him had always been deserved, because Shiro was a good man through and through. “His commanding officer, that day… he made a miscalculation. A poor call, if you will.” She draws her kimono around her closer as if shivering. “It was fatal, so many lives were lost that day because of it, including the commanding officer’s. Good sailors, proud to serve their country, dying at the hands of an officer’s mistake. Katsuhito-han….” She looks at Keith and it’s like Shiro, first back from Galra captivity, something distant in his gaze. “He came home a changed man, shaken to his core.

“What before had been easy and open to him was gone, as if there was no longer joy in life. He would wake at night, screaming for sailors he could not save. Those who did survive, they reported it was because he had given them orders, and they had followed him easily, but there was no comfort in that. Not for Katsuhito-han, who could not save them all.”

Shiro after the lost of life in a battle he’d overseen, the weight of the universe on him as he planned the next move in the war that would cost even more lives… Keith can easily picture it all as his father instead, the way the man must have looked–

“I love my husband,” Okan states strongly, “I loved him before the accident and I loved him more after. He went through something awful that day but survived, for me, the burden upon him and him alone. I could never share it with him but I could do other things: I could raise our son, I could keep our house, I could accept his coldness with warmth so that he could continue on best he could.” She shakes her head and Keith realizes she’s crying. “I did what I could, for him. He did what he could, for his sailors.

“We burdened Taka-chan, with the weight of what came before him, but we did our best. I hope he knows, we did our best.”

“He does,” Keith whispers. “He struggles but he knows.”

Okan weeps.

“Hey.” Shiro smiles weakly from where he’s walking at the line of trees and moss, trodding what was probably a once-familiar path. “Sorry for storming out and leaving you–”

Keith moves to him immediately, wrapping him in his arms to hold tightly. Shiro hesitates before wrapping around him in return, squeezing, Keith’s face pressed into the base of his neck.

“What happened?” Shiro whispers.

“I love you,” Keith says. “I love you so much, Takashi Shirogane.” Shiro pulls him back, Keith peeling himself away reluctantly to meet his husband’s eyes and explain, “You survived so much, for me, and I could never fathom where that strength came from. You did what had to be done, because someone had to do it, and now the universe is at peace because of you.”

His husband blushes, raising an eyebrow. “Not that I don’t love praise from you, but… what’s brought this on?”

“You were told, yeah, what happened to your father?” Shiro nods.

“Yeah, my mother explained it to me, and his parents as well.” Shiro shrugs. “Why? What’s that got to do with me?”

The shape of Shiro’s nose and jaw, the glint in his eyes that showed both hurt and strength, the respect for tradition, the importance of honor — “I see now how much of you is your father,” Keith admits, and he knows before Shiro wrinkles his face that his husband won’t like it but it’s the truth.

“Okan makes it sound…,” and he waves a hand around. “An officer made a bad call, it happens.” Shiro pulls back, Keith missing his warmth. “You can’t fall apart over it.”

“Instead you should silently pull away from the ones who love you and beat yourself up endlessly?” Keith asks and Shiro winces at that. “Surely, now, after everything you’ve been through… that part of your father must make sense?”

“Sure it makes sense,” and Shiro turns to walk to the trees, Keith watching him. “I get it now, I do, but Shiro the adult wasn’t Taka the child. I needed a father, Keith,” and he turns to look at him, as if pleading for his understanding, the way his mother had at the table. “I needed my father, not some shell of a man.”

Keith nods. “You were a child, you deserved a father who could be there for you.”

He’s a grown man, in a formal kimono, talking to his husband — but Keith can also see the little boy, sick and scared, wanting his daddy. “I grapple,” Shiro starts, words carefully chosen, eyes cast down, “every day, with the implications and ramifications of an event that happened before my conception. I attempt to reconcile the man Katsuhito-han was with the O-tōsama that raised me. You know,” and he laughs but it’s a hollow sound, self-deprecating, “the first time I barked an order as an officer, all I could hear was his voice — it fucked me up. It fucked me up so badly.” Shiro looks out, surveying their surrounding, before he can look at Keith again. “I am my father’s son, I know that, but I don’t like it.”

“You can be his good parts,” Keith offers, “and learn from his mistakes.”

“Maybe.” Shiro shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. I struggled to be emotionally available with men for most of my life, because of–” and he gestures around. “You’re probably the first man I’ve managed to have a healthy relationship with.”

Keith raises an eyebrows; the name isn’t spoken, in their marriage.

“As if that was healthy,” Shiro snorts, shaking his head. “He would have liked being married to my father — he almost married him, in a way. No, no, I couldn’t have done that.” Hands scrub his face, one pale flesh, the other pale metal. “I needed to forge my own path, learn on my own.

“I told Mitch, ya know.” He smiles, which Keith takes to be a good sign, allowing his husband to move through his emotions. “I think I told Sam, as well,” and Shiro purses his lips which is adorable, Keith smiling a little. “Yeah, don’t remember if that was before Kerberos or during the trip, probably during. I needed older men, officers, their approval in place of my father’s.”

Keith laugh. “Good thing the garrison was filled with male officers happy to praise their golden boy.”

“Hey, where do you think the perfectionism, overachieving, and workaholic tendencies come from?” He’s smiling. “Your emotionally stunted, chronically ill, disabled, queer, immigrant husband had some things to prove.” Shiro is close enough again that Keith can take his hands and pull him that little bit further to press against him. “I am really sorry for leaving you alone with my father.” There’s something hidden in the words.

“You don’t have to be perfect, Takashi: I’ve never asked that of you.” Keith wraps his arms around his husband’s neck, forcing him to maintain eye contact. “I adored you before the war but seeing your faults, your mistakes — they made me love you, Shiro, they made me see who you really were. You’re a good man, you always have been, even with your flaws. I love you because you’re you, only you. So don’t apologize for being yourself,” and Keith leans up to press his nose against Shiro’s jaw, tracing the line of it. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Keith,” Shiro breathes as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing, as if they’ve never discussed this before. But maybe, within the context of this place, of who is here with them, maybe it is different. Keith can say these things now having seen Shiro’s greatest shame, his failed relationship with his father, and continue to mean them.

The kiss is slow and filled with desperation, Keith to give, Shiro to take. Their bodies slide against each other thanks to the fabric of their kimono, Keith trying to press as much as he can against his husband. And Shiro’s moan into his mouth only encourages him, forgetting the house so close, the people within it, Shiro holding him tight against him as if Keith might try to leave.

“Love you,” Shiro breathes as their faces tilt the other way. “Love you so much,” he whispers as he moves to press kisses around Keith’s face, holding his head steady with a hand threaded through his hair. “You, only you, always you,” and Keith would be a puddle in the grass if his husband wasn’t holding him upright, his prosthetic being put to good use. “Never leave me.”

“I won’t,” Keith responds without hesitation, his turn to cradle Shiro’s head and kiss around his face. “Will never stop fighting for you.” He kisses each of Shiro’s closed eyes. “Love you, Shiro — every day, I love you more.”

“Keith,” and their foreheads press together, Shiro’s breath warm against his skin. He could stay like this forever, in his husband’s arms, a breeze blowing through the trees, water babbling in the distance, nowhere to be.

The moment, of course, cannot last.

“Takashi-san.” Shiro’s grip tightens at his father’s voice, Keith turning in his husband’s hold to watch the man approach.

They’ve spent days of their marriage talking about filial piety, vargas and quintants alone in ships between destinations discussing it at length: righteousness, benevolence, reverence, propriety, respect, submission — sometimes when Keith is piloting, it’s Shiro reading to him from books, translating things as they both try to understand, stumbling over Chinese characters he once knew. They’ve passed trips discussing its evolution, its interpretation in Japan and integration into the existing culture, its push and pull on society, its similarities and differences to related Galra concepts. Shiro’s told him about his paternal grandfather lecturing him on filial piety, which had been especially important to him, and how he had watched his father tend to his father as a practical example.

It’s how Keith fully accepted, as an adult, that sometimes there are things so deep within you that you don’t even realize they’re there until you’re acting on them. Like how his father taught him that sometimes, there is a reason to risk it all and run into a burning building: Keith can never shake that lesson, a war behind him to prove it.

Shiro is a man with a father unworthy of his son’s devotion; Takashi is a man raised in filial piety and ancestor worship.

“How you must suffer as the universe now watches your shame,” Shiro whispers. “What a failure your son is: ill, disabled, Americanized, gay–”

“Do you truly believe those things shame me?” Katsuhito-han asks, voice equally as quiet though it lacks the fire in his son’s tone.

“You have always made your views clear.”

“If you can say such a thing, then I have not.”

“You cannot rewrite what you did.” Normally in polite Japanese, Keith knows the second person pronoun should be avoided, and Shiro does, but here he lays into it as if rubbing it in his father’s face. “I am a failure and shame to the Shirogane name, I have always known that.”

“You carry on like a child in need of discipline,” and now there’s an edge to the older man’s words. “You speak of things you have never understood, because you left as a child — you may think you returned a man, and perhaps to others you are, but you are not yet one.”

“How much more would you like me to do?” and Shiro finally releases Keith who thinks he maybe shouldn’t be seeing this fight but that his husband needs him here, for support, to get out words he’s never been able to give voice to. “How much more must I do to prove myself? You will never accept me–”

“I cannot accept a son who does not accept himself.” There’s a finality to the way Katsuhito-han speaks, a heavy weight of things not said but implied, floating around his statements. “You run, and you chase, but you are never settled. You have never accepted all of you. It does not matter what you do. It does not matter what this man does–”

“My husband!” Shiro interrupts. “Akira is my husband, respect him as such.”

“I cannot respect a man I do not know,” Katsuhito-han states, as if the problem here was purely that Shiro’s parents hadn’t gotten to know Keith over time, hadn’t been part of the courting and engagement and wedding celebration.

“You aren’t trying.”

“You aren’t allowing me to.”

They stare at each other, Keith awkwardly hovering beside Shiro, eyes darting back and forth. He’s seen Shiro argue in meetings of commanders, he’s seen him argue over battle strategies and video games played with the paladins, he’s seen him argue drunkly with Matt over the most asinine topics possible. But he’s not seen Shiro argue like this since the end of his previous relationship; maybe Shiro was right to have been worried at the echo of his father in himself that he’d seen.

“What do you want, O-tōsama? Tell me!” and Shiro raises his arms, held wide, tears in his voice. “Tell me what to do that I may do it! Because I do not know! I have never known!” How much of the English his father-in-law understands, Keith isn’t sure, but the words echo around them, Shiro’s calm air giving way to a burning fire as his face glistens. “Tell me how to be a son to my father!”

The soft sounds of nature cushion the silence, the Shirogane men staring at one another as if telepathically waging war. They’d known the day would end like this, Shiro had known and Keith had prepared best he could, but it’s something else to be here, to be in it. It makes him miss battling Zarkon, because that had felt easy and straightforward compared to this.

“Tell me,” Katsuhito-han whispers, “how to be a father to my son, because I have tried but do not think I have ever succeeded.” That… was not what Keith expected. “I am under no illusions as to my faults and mistakes. I know I am not the man you wish to have had as a father, the man your mother still sees me as — the man I was.” Shiro is silent, staring, still crying. “I have struggled your whole life, with myself, with you, with our relationship.

“All I have ever wanted is for you to be the man I could not be.”

Shiro scoffs, turning away, Keith moving to him immediately. “We’re leaving,” Shiro murmurs and Keith nods; they could go back to Uji, or straight to Ōyamazaki, and there make sense of what had happened. Keith has learned to be the one who comforts, who is calm and level, he can be what his husband needs.

“Takashi-sama.” Shiro freezes at that, eyes on Keith going wide before turning to his father with suspicion. “Please, do not leave because of my actions and inactions. Stay, for your mother; I will not disturb you… or your husband.”

The wind whips by, stronger than it’s been all day. The sun is getting low. Inside, there’s a glow from artificial light.

“Please do not give up on me,” Katsuhito-han adds, barely above a whisper.

Keith squeezes Shiro’s arm: whatever his husband decides, he will support.

“We will stay. For Okan.”

Katsuhito-han bows his head.

There was never going to be a reality where everything was settled in one evening. There was no world where Shiro and his father would calmly say a few things, back and forth, and all would be resolved or dissolved. They weren’t like that and while both were filled with anger and hurt, neither was willing to let go just yet. Keith wonders if Okan would have a similar conversation with Katsuhito-han tonight as he’d had with Shiro.

Because his husband beneath him had needed to rant, to cry, to weep openly as Keith laid atop him in the narrow bed. He’d needed the closeness, the permission, to let go and bleed.

“Why is this so hard?” Shiro had asked and Keith had kissed his body everywhere he could in response. Had kissed and touched and soothed and listened, best he could. Keith could do that for Shiro: he could do anything for Shiro.

Once Shiro quiets, seemingly no more words to express his inner turmoil, Keith takes over: legs and arms twisted together, he whispers in English and Japanese, not even sure anymore which language he’s speaking. That he loves Shiro. That Shiro is the greatest person he’s ever known. That Shiro is the reason he’s still alive. That Shiro saved him, gave him the greatest life he could have had. That even with the war and the loss and all they’ve been through, Keith wouldn’t change anything because he has Shiro. He took Shiro back from Death, and he’d do it again if he had to. Shiro is his universe, and his husband, and one day the father of his children. Keith loves him.

Everything is still, it must be past midnight, by the time Shiro rolls them over to press down on Keith, head tucked against Keith’s neck. “You,” he breathes so softly that Keith isn’t sure he’s meant to hear him, “are my whole life. I would destroy the universe for you, Keith. That isn’t healthy, and it scares me sometimes, but I would. In a heartbeat, I would destroy all realities, to get back to you: I love you.”

They fall asleep like that, for a few hours.

Okan has a bag of food prepared as they pack the car, Keith hurrying to take it from her. “You are too kind, Mama.” She pats his cheek before he brings it to Shiro to fit into the trunk. “Is that everything?”

“It seems so,” Shiro agrees, looking around sadly. His father had been gone before they left their room; his mother had known what her son would say before he told her. “Mama,” and the height from the engawa means she can wrap her arms around his shoulders, Keith watching from beside the car. Okan whispers in her son’s ear, and he smiles a little, moving to kiss her cheek before she holds his face and kisses his forehead.

She looks up, gesturing to Keith, who joins them to receive his own hug and kiss to the head. “You are a good man, Aki-chan. I could trust my most beautiful son to no one else.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

“We will see each other again,” she murmurs, half to Keith, half to her son, Shiro nodding.

“I will figure this out: it is time I took care of you, Mama.”

The house in Ōyamazaki isn’t as big which is, honestly, nice. It’s snug in the best way, perfectly sized for just the two of them, no room for thoughts to echo without invitation.

Keith sits on the engawa with a cup of tea, watching Shiro walk the garden, inspecting the flowerbeds and pulling up weeds. He studies the way Shiro holds himself, not quite free of the last few days but still at ease, more than he had been.

Having met the father, he can see in the son the trained formality, the shoulders set in his back, the confidence in his strides. He can see Shiro’s command in how he throws the weeds aside, approval when he inspects a bloom opening up.

It makes him shiver for some reason.

Shiro stands at the edge of the garden, staring deep into the forest. Keith wonders if there’s stories of mythical creatures or spirits that live in these forests; perhaps Shiro will indulge him as they lay in bed tonight, or else as they enjoy breakfast in the morning, no plan for the next few days. There’s the Black Lion to return to, and the Galaxy Garrison, and the Blades, and–

His husband turns to look at him, his face softening, his body releasing tension. Fuck he loves him, smiling at the man.

Takashi Shirogane will never have a good relationship with his father, but Keith thinks maybe they can have a relationship. Maybe they can reach a point of enough respect to visit, to allow their future children to know their grandfather, to allow Keith to know his parents-in-law, to allow Shiro calls with his mother.

The euphemisms will return. This will become a faded dream. Shiro will continue to try to make sense of his father. And Keith…

Keith Shirogane will be there beside him.