“You’re late, Shirogane,” Chief had noted disdainfully. It wasn’t like Shiro to purposefully be late to the station, but today wasn’t going according to plan. First his alarm hadn’t gone off, and it was actually Kuro who woke him up via a dead mouse rested right beside his head. Now that was a rude awakening. Then there was the whole debacle with the coffee he somehow spilled on himself–though he was sure that one elderly gentleman elbowed him.
Rather than go into explicit detail, however, Shiro simply responded, “I had a rough morning, sir. Apologies.” He left it at that because there really wasn’t anything else he could say.
Chief said nothing more on the matter, but instead beckoned for Shiro to follow him into his office. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to speak with you about, Shirogane,” his began at once no sooner the door clicked shut.
Apprehension brew in the pit of Shiro’s stomach in fear that maybe he was in trouble. He kept his nerve though and calmly sat opposite of the Chief. Whatever his boss was about to say could not be worse than waking up next to a dead rodent.
“I’m going to cut straight to the chase because I don’t have time.” Shiro knit his eyebrows together in mild confusion as the Chief went on urgently, “One of our newest cadets has an attitude. He’s been through some of my best senior officers and none of them can tame this problem child. I was thinking because you’re so patient and well behaved that maybe you could show him a thing or two.”
“I thank you for considering me to train a cadet, but I haven’t been here no more than four months, sir. I couldn’t possibly–”
“Shirogane, you do this and I’ll give you a raise.”
“I’d be happy to help, sir.”
Their conversation earlier that day replayed through Shiro’s mind as he patiently wait in his own office for the problematic cadet. He might have looked calm and composed, but he was nervous. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t hold some bad mouthed brat on his own, its just the weight of wanting to make the Chief proud bore heavy onto him.
Silently he sat waiting for the inevitable. Chief said the cadet was supposed to arrive around noon. Currently the clock read 12:17 PM and Shiro’s anxiety was still as spiked as ever.
Every shadow that pass by his door, every voice that flow in from the cracks made him sit on the edge of his seat waiting for that one person, that one problematic child to finally show.
To finally meet his maker.
Shiro hadn’t expected his door to be thrown open no sooner he let his guard down. His muscles had grown sore from expecting the unexpected, but when the unexpected did happen, he did not expect it at all.
His head snapped forward no sooner the cadet began to gush out an apology. Shiro was half tempted to snap at the bumbling cadet, but then he recognized the familiar raven-haired locks of a certain young man. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning like a flippant fool.
“Keith?” His voice actually cracks. Abandoning his post at his desk, Shiro meets Keith halfway in for a tight, lingering embrace.
He only held him tighter when he felt the others arms around him. The hug lasted perhaps a little longer then any hug they’d had for awhile and he pulled away, relieved but..
“...Where did you vanish too?” It had been swirling in his mind - everyones minds. They weren’t here but he felt like that question could have been spoken for all of them. “After the fight with Zarkon, your Lion went inactive - we had to drag it back to the ship,” And he took a step back, gesturing with his hands. “We thought maybe it was just from that lightning blast, or the force from that last move but...” He ran his teeth over his bottom lip. “You just... weren’t there. You were gone. Did you end up.. here?” He didn’t sound angry, despite a portion of him that told him he should have been. Even thinking about being angry just left him feeling confused - he just wanted an explanation.
“We all thought - well.. we still don’t know what to think.” He didn’t know what to think, and it was at least clear that their dooms day sentence for their leader wasn’t true. “But your here, somehow, how did..?”
