Chapter Text
Shiro is on the hunt for a decent taco in New York City. He has tried all the “best of” locations listed in Time Out magazine and on foodie websites, the most popular high-starred favorites on Yelp. None have met the bar: the standard al pastor or carnitas Shiro can get from any taqueria in California. Throw a penny anywhere in San Jose and it’ll land within vicinity of twenty locations, all equally delicious; it’s that easy. But not in New York. A population of eight million people and home to some of the most distinguished palates, it utterly confounds Shiro that the city just can’t get it right. Maybe if sex were tacos that stomped the streets in Louboutin.
Sadly, the Hell’s Kitchen hole-in-the-wall that is Shiro’s latest attempt strikes out, too. He is debating whether to spit out the under-seasoned slop taking up prime real estate in his mouth and offending it in the process, when the waiter reappears and asks sweetly, “How is everything, sir?”
“Disgusting,” Shiro snipes, tired of New York City’s bullshit. A lengthy diatribe is on the tip of his tongue ready to be delivered as he looks up - into the most beautiful violet eyes he has ever seen. This waiter is not the same young man that had taken his order. Had he been, Shiro would have been immediately arrested, breath stolen from his lungs upon sight of the darling little face that is staring down at him, creased in distress. A pang strikes Shiro’s chest: guilt, as bitter as the bile that has risen in his throat in rebellion against the mouthful of pork he’s forcing down. He must. It’s penance for causing those tiny petal lips to turn down at their corners.
“I mean, disgustingly phenomenal! It’s the best taco I’ve ever had!”
A little piece of Shiro dies inside at the lie, but it’s worth it for how the waiter brightens instantly and flashes back a smile that surely, if immortalized in myth, would have set sail to ten thousand ships. Step aside Helen of Troy, we’ve found a new winner.
“Oh,” the waiter says and clasps his hands together in delight. Those long, finely drawn fingers are as exquisite as the rest of him. “I’m happy to hear that, sir.”
“It’s Shiro,” Shiro says and extends a hand. “And you are - ”
“Keith,” the beauty says, pointing at his name tag.
And that’s how Shiro ends up at the 53rd Street Cantina the next week, the week after, and the week after that. By the sixth week, he is treated to three tacos “on the house,” which Keith sets down next to the sample platter that Shiro has been nursing for an hour. He nearly gags - the batch is especially horrible this week. But Keith is so pleased - “courtesy of the chef,” who is Coran, an old friend and the reason for Keith’s job, and whom Keith has no doubt told about how generous Shiro is at tipping, embarrassingly so. He might as well tie a ribbon around his ATM card and hand it to Keith with his pin code and a full blessing to empty Shiro’s savings.
Keith is so easy to spoil. That he is Shiro’s twink dream personified is only icing on the cake. Keith is nice and sweet, not in the cheerful, efficiently friendly way of an extrovert, but genuinely, bone deep, in the way that matters. Case in point: the time a frazzled mother was at the restaurant with a baby, a toddler, and a grade schooler, and the three were chorused in a pastiche of noise that made the hair on the back of Shiro’s neck stand. The other patrons stared at them in open contempt. She was moving to leave, though she had just arrived, when Keith materialized at her table like an angel on earth with an armload of coloring books, crayons, and Legos. He sat with them until the noise leveled to - well, less inconvenient.
So Shiro can forgive him when he’s aloof - or rather, he embraces it, because the other side of that careful reservation, when Keith does open up, is wondrous, like falling upwards into the open sky. It’s startling each time, and startlingly satisfying, as if Shiro has earned something truly of value, as if Keith has chosen him for a secret-sharing and Shiro feels special because of it.
And he lets Shiro natter, on and on for hours when the restaurant is mostly empty, which Shiro learns is three in the afternoon on any day and times his visits accordingly. Keith sits across from him, in the cafe outside when it’s a nice day, or secluded together in a booth when the weather is horrible, terrible, which is often, and they exist in a bubble, like they’re the only two people left on the island of Manhattan.
Shiro has a shrink. The relationship spans four years, dating back to the car accident that had not only amputated Shiro’s right hand, but his life into a raggedy divide: the Before and the After. Yet Shiro has never left a session feeling like he does after a talk with Keith - lightened and changed, incrementally but fundamentally, as if Shiro is setting down tracks to a new life in a different direction, finally.
Also, Keith is broke. He needs the money. He attends a community college in the Upper West Side and rents a shoebox-sized room in an apartment in Queens that he shares with three roommates - Hunk, Pidge, and Lance. He has meals at the restaurant - and loves the tacos, god bless him - and lives on granola bars and tap water the rest of the time. They are not complaints. Keith does not complain. He just states facts, like: he was a foster kid, orphaned young; aged out of the system; a sometimes welfare recipient when things get really, really bad; smart as a tack, but fails at standardized tests.
He dreams wistfully of flying, of piloting the skies and counting each star in every country he visits. But he believes that reality is as distant as the stars that call to him. Though Shiro is not in the business of giving advise these days, he does share a nugget, an artifact from the Before that has survived to the After: patience yields focus. Keith accepts it like he’s been a handed a legacy, his alone to treasure and perpetuate. Months later, Keith lays a piece of paper in front of Shiro. It’s his report card for the semester and down the line next to each subject is a uniform letter grade: A, A, A, A, A.
“Patience yields focus,” Keith says softly, and not long after he transfers to Columbia on a full scholarship.
And so it continues. Weeks turn into months, months turn into a year, and Shiro is forced to up his workout from three days to five to keep from growing a taco tummy. Then one afternoon Keith returns to his table after a meal with the bill. On it is written in clear and precise handwriting a telephone number. Shiro’s heart speeds up.
“I figured, well - ” Keith’s fingers twist themselves into a knot. His face is bright red. “It’s just. You don’t need a reason to come see me. The tacos - you can stop pretending.” He laughs a little.
“How long have you known?” Shiro says, delighted to be found out.
“The whole time - I’ve known all along.”
Keith may have been speaking solely of the tacos or the inevitability of them, either way it’s the beginning of their story, one they still tell years later when they are asked, because they are always asked: how did you meet?
And the rest, as they say, is history.