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Keith Kogane had a fire inside him.
Ever since he was born, a part of him was angry. There was something he was always missing, and it infuriated that part of him. It made the fire inside him glow brightly, as it yearned to be free.
And he had no explanation for it. No excuse. He was written off by many of his teachers as just another brat with anger issues because his parents didn’t pay enough attention to him.
These flames separated him from his peers. They drew a line that isolated Keith. It wasn’t his fault, exactly. He wanted to talk to his classmates. He wanted friends. He wanted to play with them and laugh with them and eat with them.
There was a bit of him that just couldn’t really connect with those around him. Something about him just didn’t work with them, and that made the fire inside him angry. He lashed out with words and blows, getting him in frequent trouble.
Things only got worse when his father left him when he was young. He just...walked out. No explanation. No warning.
He just left, without asking Keith to come with him.
That turned the fire, that had previously been only a few simple flames, into an inferno.
He stopped trying to relate to his peers. He didn’t see any reason to keep trying, since it was obvious that they could never be friends. They could never handle his flames. He didn’t talk to those around him, and those who tried to talk to him besides what was necessary in the classroom got snapped at. He was in a fight every week or so.
That was when he met Shiro.
He was fourteen when he met the older boy. He was in the library at the Galaxy Garrison, making an attempt to study. It wasn’t his fault that it was distracting when those in his class kept giving him glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. He knew what they were probably all saying. He had heard it all before.
That’s Keith Kogane. He’s the best fighter pilot in his generation, but is going to waste it all.
Why is he alone? Doesn’t he have any friends?
He’s really talented, but he’s a jerk. Talk to him and he’ll break your nose.
Just the thought of the whispers made him nearly growl in frustration, the flames burning inside him angrily as he curled his fingers around the textbook. He tried to focus harder on the words in front of him, but it was too hard to concentrate.
He had never wanted to be the ‘bright kid with anger issues’ or the ‘talented kid who threw everything he had away’. That wasn’t really him. He wanted to succeed. He wanted to relate to people.
He just couldn’t connect to them, and it made him angry.
“Mind if I sit here?” He looked up to see an older boy who had black hair and a kind smile on his face. He gestured to the seat across from Keith, and Keith shrugged. Why was this boy here? Didn’t he hear the whispers that plagued Keith?
Didn’t he know how much of an outcast Keith was? Of the fire that raged inside of him, and had consumed any friendship he had ever tried to form?
The fire that doubtlessly led to his father leaving him, abandoning him in a world where he had no one to rely on?
“I’m Takashi Shirogane, by the way. My friends call me Shiro.” Shiro introduced himself as he sat down.
“Keith Kogane.” He muttered, flipping the page in his textbook as he gave up trying to read that page. He knew all of it already. He was just reviewing.
“Huh. Our names are kind of similar, aren’t they?” Shiro mused as he took out his own textbook from his bag, along with a notebook.
Keith shrugged noncommittally. What was this guy trying to do? He wasn’t in Keith’s class, so he wasn’t another one of those people who wanted to look cool or exceptionally generous by befriending the orphan brat who yelled or fought with everyone. So what was he gaining by being friendly with him?
Keith absentmindedly flipped the page, not even bothering to try and concentrate anymore. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t focus before, and he definitely could not with that Japanese older boy sitting across from him. When he was younger he would have tried being friendly in return. He would have started a conversation.
Those conversations usually ended with Keith glaring or punching the other person. They would ask so many questions. Ask about his parents and what did they do. Ask about his other friends. Ask about what he did for fun.
And what was Keith supposed to say to those?
When he said he was an orphan, he would get pitying looks that infuriated him.
When he said he didn’t have any other friends, they would look at him, internally asking what was wrong with him because something had to be wrong if he didn’t have any friends.
When he said that for fun he researched various things, they pegged him as some stereotypical Asian nerd and they thought he was some kind of genius. He wasn’t a genius, he was just talented with piloting. Nothing else really clicked that well with him.
Making friends, for example.
So yeah, Keith was not the same person he was when he was younger, and therefore didn’t try to spark a friendship with the boy across from him. Instead, he tried to do the only thing effective for keeping the flames from making him lash out.
He was cold. Cold was the only way to stop the fire. Well, not stop it exactly, but suppress it.
He was aware of the boy staring at him, and Keith started tapping slightly on the table, annoyed. “What do you want, Takashi?” He finally said, his voice above a whisper, and his words having sharp edges.
Takashi blinked, and Keith realized he probably hadn’t been aware that he was staring so openly. “Sorry, it’s just…” He met Keith’s eyes, despite the younger boy’s hostile gaze. “Your eyes.”
Keith was taken by surprise, and his tone lost it’s coldness due to it. “My eyes?”
Takashi nodded. “They’re purple. I’m not judging.” He rushed to add when Keith narrowed his eyes slightly, but that had more just been Keith trying to be analyzing what Takashi was trying to do than him being offended. “It’s...cool.”
Keith blinked. He wasn’t sure how to react. This had never happened to him. “Cool?” He repeated, as if the word would fix his confusion.
Takashi nodded slightly. “Yeah. Sorry if I was bothering you though.”
“It’s...fine?” Keith wasn’t sure what to do. The fire inside him was slightly diminished, even that being taken by surprise by the black haired boy in front of him.
Takashi nodded, seemingly sated by Keith’s words, and went back to diligently doing his schoolwork like a good student. Keith had never been that student. He was the student that sat in the back and didn’t do the homework, and was therefore knocked off as the lazy troublemaker. Then he would do brilliantly in the simulations and tests, and his teachers would get annoyed with him. They’d talk about wasted potential and they would try to ‘inspire’ him. Keith didn’t need to be inspired. He didn’t want to be.
“Oh,” Keith looked back up at Takashi’s words. “I did say my friends call me Shiro. Not Takashi.”
Keith looked back down, mad at himself for being more uncomfortable than angry. “We aren’t friends.” He forced himself to say. They weren’t. He barely even knew the boy.
And he was Keith Kogane. Keith Kogane was too much of a freak to have friends.
Takashi didn’t seem upset by his words, but merely accepted it. That made Keith even more uncomfortable. Who did this guy think he was? His anger at his own discomfort grew, and the only outlet nearby for it was the boy across from him.
“What are you trying to do?” Keith asked, his words regaining their sharpness.
Takashi looked at him inquisitively, and Keith elaborated. “Why are you sitting here? There are other seats. You could sit somewhere else and not bother me.”
“You said you didn’t mind.” Takashi pointed out.
“Well, maybe I do now.” Keith muttered, giving the older boy a glare.
Takashi just looked at him, not at all hurt by Keith’s words. “Do you want me to leave?”
Keith blinked. No one had ever asked him that. They just left, abruptly and without anything to leave Keith. His father had left him without anything at all to clue Keith in on for motivation. Anyone he tried to befriend left when Keith accidentally said anything too harsh. He never meant to, it just came out that way.
So he just froze them out, or let them burn in the flames that had already hurt him so much already.
“No.” He said the word quietly, without any of the confidence he had previously held.
Shiro smiled at him. “Then I won’t.”
Keith nodded numbly, and then returned to his book. The day overall was a waste studying wise, but it was a major accomplishment on a different front.
That was the day Keith met Takashi ‘Shiro’ Shirogane.
And that was the day Keith made his first real friend.
When Shiro disappeared after the Kerberos mission years later, Keith lost his first friend, and swore he would be the last one he ever would make.
[And a month after he finally found Shiro again, he realized he also broke that vow. It hadn’t been a conscious decision on his part, but the other Voltron Paladins - as well as the two Alteans they had met - had managed to make their way past the flames that guarded Keith’s heart.]