Chapter Text
Even though they were roommates, Keith and Lance didn’t talk much.
Six months into their freshman year of college, and they still didn’t get along. In the beginning, they fought. They argued. They were constantly trying to piss each other off over the most insignificant of things. Progressively, however, they talked to each other less and less. Now, even small talk is considered a special occasion. It seems they both eventually came to the realization that living with one another would be less problematic if they just avoided each other to the best of their ability. The only issue at this point, was that Keith and Lance shared mutual friends.
Keith was close to Shiro, who, despite being a graduate student, knew Keith through years of shared martial arts classes outside of school. Shiro was amazing at what he did, and Keith had looked up to him since his first day of martial arts back in middle school. Eventually they became good friends and, to Keith, Shiro became the big brother he never had.
Shiro was also close to Pidge, Lance’s closest friend from high school. Pidge had known Shiro for most of her life, as Pidge’s older brother and Shiro were childhood friends. So, when Shiro discovered his best friend’s younger sister would be attending the same college, he made a great effort to help her through her first semester, and as a result, became closer friends than before.
And then there was Hunk, who Lance and Pidge became close to after sharing several classes together their first semester at college. By October, all five had formed somewhat of a friendship circle, which became their usual hangout “group.” The only issue, of course, was that Lance and Keith didn’t get along.
When they were together with their group of friends, it wasn’t so bad. Lance would throw jabs at Keith, but Keith always outsmarted him. In the beginning, everyone was concerned. But after a bit, they learned to just laugh it off. Even Lance and Keith tried hard to laugh it off, to not make it awkward for their shared friends. But behind their closed door, they almost despised each other. Almost, because for some reason, both weren’t entirely sure why. Of course each could endlessly list reasons why they didn’t get along. For Keith, he especially couldn’t stand Lance’s try-too-hard approaches to being funny or cool, his smug cockiness, or his blatant bedroom lies. For Lance, he especially couldn’t stand Keith’s lack of humor, his pretty boy face and cool tattoos, or his over-achievements. Although he would never admit it, Lance’s reasons were typically fueled by jealousy. God was he jealous. While Keith’s sprouted from the mere fact that Lance had an annoying personality. Obnoxious, even. And above anything, Keith couldn’t stand obnoxious personalities. However, neither boy exactly had a reason to hate the other. Call it, rather, a clash of personalities.
Today, however, was a first. It was a first in that Keith discovered something entirely uncool about Lance. But considering how hard Lance typically tries to pull off the cool-guy act, Keith could only imagine it was going to happen eventually. But this? This was the last thing Keith expected Lance would be into. It was a Wednesday afternoon, around 5pm and Keith had just returned to his dorm room from his bi-weekly martial arts class. He knew Lance had Statistics until 6, leaving him at least an hour to himself, which he always enjoyed thoroughly. Taking advantage of his hour of freedom, Keith switched on his speakers and plugged in his music, Halsey’s “Colors” filling the quiet room. It was one of his favorite music artists as of lately. He thought about how if Lance were here he would complain about Keith’s “hipster crap,” as he likes to call it, and switch to dreadful Top 40 music. Keith felt instantly at ease as the music consumed his ears. But, it was then that he noticed it.
A bright pink CD case sat on the floor near Lance’s desk on his side of the room. Lance was a fairly messy roommate, (another thing to add to his list of annoyances) but Keith couldn’t help but notice the color which popped out against the deep gray of the carpet floor. From a distance it looked rather girly, which Keith thought to be somewhat strange, considering Lance. As he moved closer to the pink case, he made out the images of hearts and cutesy teddy bears in decoration. As he picked it up and actually got a good look, his mind went blank. His expression was a mixture of confusion, embarrassment, and shock. Keith read the title, My Pretty Boyfriend II, scanning the cover that revealed a 2-D picture of a blushing boy with dark hair, bright blue anime-like eyes, wearing nothing but a....blue apron.
After realizing what he had picked up, Keith dropped the case like it was on fire. He couldn’t entirely process what he had just looked at or why in the fuck it was in his room, on Lance’s side of the room.
This is one of those...things right? Those things that sweaty nerds who can’t get a real date are into? Anime, right? Except this looks like a...game? And why is there a half-naked boy on the cover??
Keith glanced at the cover once more and noticed the R-18 symbol in the lower corner of the case. He picked it up once more just to be sure.
Oh my god is this...porn? But like, anime?? Isn’t this, hentai or whatever it’s called?? Is Lance into that sort of thing?? Wait, is Lance...gay??! Jesus chri-
Before Keith could complete his thought, the door opened, revealing a grinning Lance, textbooks in arm.
“Class was caaaanceeeled,” Lance sang as he practically danced into the room. “God that makes my day just soo much bet-”
Lance’s eyes met Keith’s and quickly switched to the brightly colored case in his hand.
“W-what are you…” Lance’s question trailed off and the joyful look on his face immediately disappeared as horror took over, followed by a deep red flush of his cheeks and the tips of his perky ears. “Oh my god.”
“Lance, I was just, I mean, it was just laying there and, I mean, is this yours??” Keith didn’t know how else to word his question. He felt entirely uncomfortable at the awkwardness of the situation. He had no idea how to react to his discovery, and he definitely hadn’t enough time to prepare considering Lance shouldn’t have been back for another hour. In all honesty he was probably going to just leave it where it was and act as if he hadn’t seen what he had seen. As much as he enjoyed calling out Lance on his bullshit, this was a situation he wasn’t sure he wanted to call out.
“O-of course it’s not mine, jerk!” And just like that Lance’s horrified and embarrassed expression turned to rage as he snatched the pink case out of Keith’s hands. “This is Hunk’s, he must’ve left it here last time he was over. I would never be into this sort of thing, obviously.” Lance prayed his lie was good enough to fool Keith, considering Hunk was a proud nerd who regularly talked about the latest and greatest anime releases on Netflix.
Keith wasn’t sure what to believe, but he felt it made much more sense that it belonged to Hunk. But still, he couldn’t ignore the title or the image of the blue apron boy on the cover. Was Hunk into that sort of thing?
“Alright, um, then make sure you return it to him,” Keith responded, still feeling awkward about the whole situation.
“Duh.” Lance stuffed the case into his backpack and went back towards the door. “Getting some dinner, uh, see you later.”
---
Keith fell asleep early as usual, especially exhausted from his martial arts training that day. It was almost midnight when Lance entered the room, back from his late-night study session with Pidge. Lance typically didn’t come back until late, even on school nights, to which Keith felt lucky for being a heavy sleeper.
Lance flicked on the light switch next to his bed, careful not to make too much noise as Keith slept. Despite how much the two didn’t get along, they had mutual respect for each other as far as living mates. Then he switched on his laptop, taking out the bright pink case that had caused a stir earlier. It wasn’t Hunk’s. It was Lance’s. And Lance would be doomed to hell if Keith ever found that out.
Lance opened the case, popped the CD into his laptop, and sprawled out across his twin-sized bed. He propped his head up using his elbows, resting his laptop in front of him at the foot of the bed. Lance plugged in his earphones and within moments the familiar pink welcome screen menu appeared before him. He browsed through his saved game files until he found his last mark. He hadn’t been able to play since the weekend, having been caught up in writing the Shakespeare essay he’d procrastinated on almost too much. He clicked on his save file and the much-too-adorable smiling image of Jiro, the game’s protagonist, filled his computer screen.
“Lance-senpai, what do you want to do today?”
A small menu screen revealing different locations popped up:
Movie Theater
The Cafe
The Beach
Bookstore
The Mall
Lance clicked on the Movie Theater link, which brought him to a new screen.
“I would love to see a movie with Lance-senpai~! Which kind of movie should we see? Though, if it is a scary movie I might need you to sit extra close to me~”
Lance giggled. He couldn’t help it. This was his weakness. As cool as he tried to come off in real life, Lance had a complete weakness for anything adorable, which he refused to reveal to anyone. Games like these were his ultimate escape. Lance chose the scary movie option that appeared on his screen beneath the Romance and Comedy options.
“Ehh? I’m kind of afraid to watch this...But as long as Lance-senpai is close next to me I think I will be okay~”
Before Lance could continue with his 2-D date, he heard a muffled sound escape Keith on the opposite end of the room. It was a rare occasion, but there were times Keith woke up in the night to use the restroom or grab a drink of water, which is exactly what he did. Keith sat up from his bed, groggily wiping away at his eyes before getting up to walk toward the front door. At the first sound of Keith’s awaking, Lance had stealthily and quickly shut his laptop, turning over and pretending to snore. He waited for the door to open and for Keith to leave to the restroom located at the opposite end of the dormitory hall, but instead there was silence. He was certain he had heard Keith wake up and get out of his bed, so why hadn’t he left? Lance carefully turned over to face Keith’s side of the room and, to his confusion, found Keith standing in place, staring wide-eyed.
What the hell is he looking at?
Lance followed the direction of Keith’s eyes, which were, to his dismay, focused once again on the bright pink case that this time sat beside Lance’s feet at the head of his bed.
Oh God, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. There’s no fucking way I can talk myself out of this one. God damnit, how could I be so God damn careless??
Still, Lance tried his very best to not to address the very large elephant in the room.
“Keith! You’re awake! What’s up? Uhh, bad dream perhaps?” Lance’s attempt at nonchalance failed completely.
“You lied,” Keith said bluntly, but not accusingly. “That game is totally yours, isn’t it?”
Lance, at this point, felt very defeated. Embarrassingly so, especially in front of Keith. The Keith that he was so jealous of. The Keith that he secretly (not so secretly) wanted so badly to impress. Lance scratched at the back of his neck, a nervous tendency of his, and released the breath he had unawaringly been holding in.
“Yeah...It’s actually mine.”