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Before Kerberos
Shiro was finishing packing for an off-base training session in a few days, having promised Keith they would spend the weekend together once he was done. Keith watches him go in and out of the bathroom, Shiro’s goofy smile of happiness at Keith each time as he moves items into his bag. Keith knew better than to ask if he could help: Shiro would say no.
So instead, Keith waits until there’s enough items in the bag to pull it to his seat at the man’s desk and rearrange its content.
“Keith!” Shiro looks annoyed but Keith knows he doesn’t mean it.
“And people say I’m stubborn.” That makes the man laugh, leaving Keith to rearrange the contents of the bag before he sits on his bed, facing Keith. “Can I… ask a question?”
“Of course,” Shiro says, “you know you’re always welcomed to.” Keith wonders how many secrets are actually left between them.
“Have you ever heard of a festival called Chu… seok?”
Shiro’s lips press together, thinking that over, and Keith would swear he could see the filing cabinet of Shiro’s mind being rifled through. “Chuseok?” He puts an inflection on it, as if trying out how it feels.
“I think that’s how it’s said.” Keith shrugs, already feeling stupid for having brought it up. “I don’t know why but I was thinking of Pops recently and I remembered him saying it but… I don’t know, it’s dumb, ignore me–”
A big hand lands on his shoulder before Keith can turn away. “It’s not dumb,” Shiro says sternly. “Keith?”
The thing about Shiro is, he’s always supportive. He always put Keith first. He always listened. And yet there were things Keith felt he couldn’t take, topics he couldn’t breach, like an invisible wall he had set up, as if there was something that might too far for Shiro.
“Keith,” and Shiro sighs that sigh, that sigh he got when he knew Keith was hurting more than he was letting on, shifting to lean forward and force Keith to meet his eyes. “Keith, it’s not dumb: you can tell me what it is.”
The thing about Shiro is, he means it, and that worries Keith.
“I….” He swallows hard, staring at his knees where he was twisting his hands; Shiro’s hand not on his shoulder lands on his hands, stilling him in the best, most comforting way, because once Shiro got Keith talking, it all poured out. “I was dreaming about when I was little and this one time Pops took me on a trip, to this festival, I don’t remember where it was, but there were people everywhere and they looked like us, do you know what I mean? It was the first time I really remember seeing people that looked like us, like me and Pops, and there was all this food and people kept giving me more food, because I was little right? And Pops had dressed me up in this weird clothing, like it was fun but I’d never even seen clothes like that before, but he had clothes like that too and so did lots of people around us, and there were these like rice cakes, I don’t know, they were really good, and Asian pears, I know they’re your favorite, they were as big as my head and– what?” Keith finally looks up to see Shiro smiling, something about him saying he might cry.
“I didn’t realize,” Shiro whispers, “how rare it was, for you to see people who looked like you.” Because Keith didn’t feel it was his place to talk about, with Shiro, didn’t know how to start the conversation. “Keith, Chuseok is a Korean holiday, that was probably a Korean festival your father had taken you to.”
Keith turns that over in his mind, looking at Shiro and daring to ask, “Do you think… I’m…?”
The man shrugs, grin to the side, as he says lightly, “You could easily be Korean, but I wouldn’t know.”
That was the thing — “Neither do I.”
“Keith?”
He stands suddenly, needing to move or he’d explode, pacing the room as Shiro watches. “The thing is, right, the thing is, you know where you’re from and I know you hide it, we’ve talked about that, blending in like you’re American born and raised, but you at least know where you’re from and you’re proud of that and I get to see that, I get to be part of that with you, and that makes me so happy Shiro, but I don’t know those things, I don’t know where I’m from, well I know but I don’t know know, does that make sense? Pops used to tell me things but now I don’t remember what he said, and he used to use words I understood but now I can’t hear them anymore, when I think about him, and I like go back and forth between desperately, desperately needing to know who I am, where my family is from, and thinking well it doesn’t fucking matter at all because my family was Pops and Pops is gone so now I have to make my own way and that’s fine, well it’s not fine, but it is what it–”
He’s pulled to Shiro’s chest, crushed against him in a hug that’s tight and fierce, Shiro’s face pressing into the top of his head.
And that breaks Keith down, shattering everything that had been held back, arms wrapping around Shiro’s chest to squeeze as he gasps into his shirt, crying and crying and crying.
Shiro lets him cry, as long as he needs, before pulling him to the bed to sit beside him. “Hey,” and Shiro wraps his arm around Keith’s shoulders, holding him close even now, and kisses the top of his head. “It’s ok, Keith. It’s going to be ok. Thank you for telling me all of that: I know it was hard.” Keith sniffles, pressing further into Shiro’s chest because he had a massive crush on his best friend who would be leaving for the other side of the galaxy soon so he wanted to take what he could while he was still here. "I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t share this with me, because my experience of being an Asian immigrant is different than your experience as an Asian American.”
“You didn’t,” Keith protests, “I just… didn’t know how to… and you… I don’t know.”
“It’s hard, to articulate,” Shiro suggests and Keith nods against him. “I get that.” A hand rubs up and down his back. “Would you like to know what I think?” Keith nods again. “When you lost your father, you didn’t just lose him: you lost a connection to your past, to your history. It sounds to me like that’s what you’re coming to terms with.” Why was Shiro able to put it so much better than Keith ever could? “Even if you didn’t know those people, your father might have, or his parents might have. I can’t imagine not knowing about my parents’ families.”
Keith pulls back to meet Shiro’s eyes and admit, “I know more about your family than mine.”
“Oh Keith.” Shiro’s throat sounds tight, like he might cry. “It’s not fair you lost so much, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to know, even if you don’t find the answers you wanted. Maybe you’ll find something else, along the way?” Shiro tries to smile, adding, “And if not, you can be an honorary Shirogane.”
“Shiro,” he whines though he smiles, knowing how seriously Shiro took his family legacy. “Come on: you can’t adopt an American mutt like that.”
“I can if I want,” Shiro laughs, “because if you’re an American mutt than you’re mine and I wouldn’t change you for a purebred dog for all the money in the world.”
“That would mean more,” Keith counters, “if you weren’t a cat person.” Keith dares to lay his head on Shiro’s shoulder, the man wrapping his arm around him again as he laughs. “I just don’t even know where to start.”
“Let me think on it,” Shiro suggests. “You remember something, so maybe that’s enough of a start. Unfortunately your name doesn’t tell us much that’s… well.” Keith looks up, seeing Shiro grimace before forcing a smile. “A Japanese name on a Korean family is… I’ll figure it out.”
Keith nods, exhaustion settling in. “Thank you, Shiro.”
Shiro lays his head atop Keith’s again. “Of course, Keith.”
It’s their first sparring session since Shiro returned to base from the training, the two sat catching their breaths after the latest round, when Shiro volunteers, “I tried looking up Korean festivals in this area.”
“You didn’t have–” but Shiro is already shaking his head, knowing Keith will say he didn’t have to, because Keith isn’t used to people meaning what they say and Shiro is hellbent on single handedly always being there for Keith.
“There was a Korean mid-autumn festival that apparently used to happen, a couple hours away, though it hasn’t been held in about ten years. Maybe that was the one your father had taken you to; it’s unfortunate we can’t go.”
“Shiro,” Keith breathes, always taken aback by how seriously Shiro took his concerns. “When did you have time during your training?”
That makes the other man blush, forcing an awkward laugh. “Well, it had clearly been important to you, so I wanted to figure it out, for you.” Shiro looks at him and smiles. “Besides, I’d time on the trip there and back.”
“Surely you’d better things to do than look this up for me.” He’d meant it to be lighthearted but it makes Shiro stare at him as if shocked.
“Keith, there’s nothing more important to me than you.” There’s a pause before Shiro seems to realize what he’d said. “I… well.” He shrugs. “Yeah.”
Oh, that… that was big wasn’t it? Maybe Keith wasn’t so alone in feeling how he did towards Shiro.
“Thank you,” he manages, because Shiro always recognized the effort things like that took to say. “You… are the most important thing to me too.” Shiro smiles at that, looking happier. “I’m grateful I have you to understand how important this is to me and respect it.”
“Of course, Keith: it’s an honor to be on this journey with you.”
Keith is helping Shiro work on his bike and even though the sun is blazing hot overhead, there’s nowhere else Keith would rather be.
“Can I ask a question?” He doesn’t know why he still feels the need to ask that first, every time, but he does.
“Of course, Keith,” Shiro laughs, same as always, handing him the screwdriver he’d been using. “What’s on your mind?”
Keith takes a deep breath to get it out in one go. “Will you teach me Japanese?”
Shiro pauses in what he’d been calibrating, blinking, before turning to look at Keith and blink again. “It's probably better if you learn the Kantō dialect,” he says without much heart. “Otherwise you’ll sound Kansai like me.”
“What if I want to sound Kansai?” Keith dares. “I… I want to learn Japanese, with you, for you.”
“You don’t have to,” Shiro protests. “Wouldn’t it be better to learn Korean? We can both learn, and be bad at it together.” Keith doubts Shiro has ever been bad at anything.
“If I learned Korean, it’d just be a… a language.” Keith looks up into Shiro’s face and determines he’s going to win this mini argument. “But if I learn Japanese, even while you’re all the way out on Kerberos, you won’t be so far away from me. I have no one to share Korean with in a meaningful way; I’d much rather be able to share Japanese with you, if you’ll let me.”
Since the mission had been announced, and he’d found out about Shiro’s illness, and the end of Shiro’s engagement, Keith feels like their relationship has gotten stronger. Like Shiro treats him like a man now, let’s him in more, gives him more responsibility, and Keith loves it, wants to be there for Shiro. His feelings for Shiro are secondary, even as he wishes Shiro would look at him the way he’s seen the man look at others.
Shiro is his friend. His only friend. Keith wants to do this for him.
“Ok,” Shiro agrees, smiling slowly. “Ok, yeah.” He laughs, clapping Keith on the shoulder. “I’d really like that, Keith.”
The bike doesn’t take that much longer to tune up, moving into the hangar eventually to add the upgrades Shiro had ordered to it. Shiro teaches Keith little phrases, here and there, making him practice certain sounds that Keith isn’t sure how to make with his mouth. But it lets him study Shiro’s mouth, and the way he produces sounds, and that’s not just motivation for Keith now but memories to file away for a future wank.
By the time everything is set, the pair ready to shower and get dinner, Shiro claps Keith on the back and jokes, “When I get back, I expect you’ll be good enough that I’ll allow you to call me Taka.” Shiro laughs as they walk but Keith knows he’s serious, knows only Shiro’s mother has ever called him that. Even calling him Takashi would be intimate; that Shiro is thinking of that at all makes Keith burn inside in the best possible way.
After Shiro takes Keith to see the ship he’ll pilot to Kerberos and back, Mrs Holt taking their photo before it, Shiro has him come back to his nearly-empty room. Everything is in boxes for storage or else donating, only the essentials for the next day left now.
“Here,” and Shiro presents a wrapped package to Keith who tears it open to find a book on learning Japanese. “This is specific to my dialect,” Shiro says, “so you can keep learning while I’m gone. I won’t be able to correct your pronunciation and answer your questions, but I hope it helps the distance to not feel so big.” Because of course Shiro remembered what Keith had said, that day he’d asked. “And see!” Shiro adds before Keith can thank him, holding up a book on learning Korean. “I don’t need to learn Japanese but I will need to learn Korean, so I’m taking this with me.”
“Shiro!” Keith protests. “You can only bring three books, don't waste it on this!” He can’t bring himself to ask why would he need to learn Korean, face flushing at the implications Shiro surely didn’t mean.
“It’s not a waste,” Shiro says, eyebrows drawn together. “When I’m not in the mood for my massive Japanese book on a comprehensive history of Japan, or my huge English book on a comprehensive history of Western philosophy, I’ll have this.” The man was such a fucking nerd. “Because… you were right.” Shiro blushes, grinning. “This way, I can feel close to you, while I’m gone, too.”
The next day, after liftoff and the commotion it entails, Keith hides in his bed with the Japanese book. On the first page there’s a note Shiro had written, in Japanese, under it having added in English,
I expect you to be able to read this by the time I get back
—Taka
Because Shiro knew Keith thrived with a challenge, tracing the letters of his name.
After the war
Shiro is slower to finish dinner tonight because of his exhaustion, Keith rubbing his thigh when Shiro massages his face with his hand for the third time in as many minutes. “Want to talk about it or be distracted?”
“Distracted,” Shiro murmurs, pushing his food around more. “This is really good, don’t think–”
“I know,” Keith interrupts, leaning over to kiss his husband gently. “I know,” he repeats in Japanese, because he did: Shiro worked so hard for him, for them, so that when Atlas gets back to Earth, they can have time to themselves. “I think I’ve picked my name, in Japanese.”
“Oh!” Shiro’s face lights up, pushing his bowl away to lean forward and study Keith, that goofy smile on his face he used to have, before Kerberos, before the war and the torture and the trauma. His husband actually looks his age, Keith stroking the side of his face where the smile dimples his cheek. “Do tell.”
This many years into their relationship, their friendship and… whatever it was they had had going on, before they married at the end of the war, Keith no longer needs Shiro to teach him every Japanese sound and phrase. Keith knows how to say most things he wants to, lacking in more formal, polite practice because with Shiro, they’re casual in how they speak, Shiro using slang like Keith’s never seen him do in English with such ease, Keith allowed to call him Taka now, just as Shiro had told him before giving him the Japanese learning book with its inscription for Keith to translate.
I have never known how to put into English how much you mean to me, how you changed my life for the better and showed me what it means to ask for what I deserve. I am blessed to get to know you, to have you beside me, when everything feels so uncertain and I don’t know what I’m doing most days. But I have you, and I love you, and I know that can get me through anything. I’ll be home soon, to tell you properly, I promise.
—崇
I expect you to be able to read this by the time I get back
—Taka
Keith pulls over Shiro’s datapad, dismissing all of the notifications on it and putting it to do not disturb mode, before he opens an app to draw with his finger. “I am going to do this wrong and you are going to say nothing.” Shiro snorts as Keith writes out the character as best he can, 明, the strokes wobbly as he gets better at writing kanji. When he’s done, he holds the pad up for Shiro who smiles and nods.
“The shorter reading or the longer one?”
“Longer,” Keith says, “like your name.” Because 崇 could be read as Taka or Takashi, and 明 could be read as Aki or Akira. “Something about it feels right, in a way I can’t explain.”
“It’s a good character,” Shiro murmurs, taking the pad to write the character again underneath Keith’s attempt. Even with his non dominant hand, Shiro’s strokes are more sure, the character looking better in his refined skill. “You’ll get better,” he says, writing another character on top of it, 銀, Shirogane.
Keith takes the pad back, writing Keith Shirogane in English beside the characters, and smiles though Shiro frowns.
“Is that ok?” Shiro asks.
“Is what ok?” Keith counters, grinning at the way his new name looks, a name that made him proud because he is Shiro’s and Shiro is his. Eventually he’d figure out how to write his Japanese name as nicely as Shiro could.
Shiro is quiet for a moment, lips pursed to the side as he thinks something over before finally saying, “For you, to have a Japanese surname, if we think you’re Korean.”
Ah: since Shiro had crashed back down to Earth, the topic of Keith’s heritage hadn’t come up again. There had been the war, and then there had been more of the war, and then there had been their elopement and it just… hadn’t come up in the weeks since war’s end. Keith is pretty sure Shiro has thought about it but not said anything because Keith hasn’t brought it up, even as Shiro had rebought the book on learning Korean, before Atlas left Earth, the one he’d brought to Kerberos that was still lingering there. Clearly Shiro had been thinking about it, waiting to broach the topic — maybe, like how Keith had often felt he couldn’t say certain things even though Shiro would have allowed him to, Shiro felt the same about this.
“Taka,” Keith sighs, taking his hand, “I already had a Japanese surname — now I just have one that is meaningful to me, not just a name that was handed down like a knickknack, but your name, because we chose each other and I get to stand by your side.”
Shiro flushes, just as he did every time Keith used his new name, and grins a little. “So long as it’s your choice. I don’t want you to ever feel pressured.”
“Takashi Shirogane, the only things you’ve ever pressured me to do are eat, sleep, and shower, I’m fine. Let me put on the kettle, maybe that’ll help you relax.” Shiro nods, smiling and stealing a kiss as he stands.
“How lucky I am, to have you, Akira Shirogane.”
After that, when they converse in Japanese — which was most of their conversations, when it’s just the two of them — Shiro takes to calling him Aki or Akira, and that makes Keith irrationally happy.
Krolia comes aboard while Shiro and Keith are in an argument with others on Atlas, but the ship knows Krolia is family now, of her captain, which is how the pair find her inside their quarters once they’ve won the argument and retired to recover.
“Mom!”
“Keith.”
Her embrace is always tight, as if she’s afraid it’ll be their last, and Keith needs that, a Galra kit seeking his parent’s comfort, an orphan given a second chance at knowing his own mother. He needs the way she puts pressure at the base of his neck, a sensitive spot for all Galra that indicated intimacy, whether familial or romantic. Krolia had been the one to explain the spot to him, a place he’d found he liked Shiro to touch, before and during the war, that large hand pressing against him grounding Keith like nothing else.
Shiro waits his turn, Keith smiling at how funny his husband still was with his mother-in-law. “O-kāhan,” Shiro breathes, allowing Krolia to dominate the hug even though he’s a head taller than her, calling her by the title he had once called his own mother.
“My son,” she breathes in Japanese, because she had wanted to learn the language to respect her son-in-law in return for his respect of her customs and how he had taken care of Keith. “You look tired,” she comments, holding his face in her hands, turning to Keith. “He looks tired.”
“He works too hard,” Keith tattles, Shiro grimacing. “But today it’s not his fault, there was an argument, it’s not important now: what’s important is you’re here.” He gets them to sit on the couch, moving to set the kettle going — it seemed most Galra in Keith’s life enjoyed Japanese green tea, making bridging the two cultures easier for the Shirogane marriage. “Did you have a good flight?”
“I did,” Krolia comments, Keith looking over his shoulder to see her leaning into Shiro’s armless side, the way his husband lays his head atop hers and smiles at Keith. “I’m actually glad I was able to settle in before you two got here: the water filtration system on the ship acted up. I was fine,” she quickly amends as Keith turns, “we had enough water to drink, but the hygiene system was impacted. It felt good to be back on Atlas in the luxury of the captain’s shower.” She strokes Shiro’s jaw, the man overly proud of having provided for her, which warms Keith. “And how have you two been? I see a new hobby has been acquired.” She gestures to a book as he places the empty mugs on the table: it’s Shiro’s Korean book.
“Oh, that’s mine,” and Shiro blushes, eyes darting to Keith before elaborating. “I had had this book, on my trip to Kerberos, so repurchased it to pick up Korean again. Keith thinks it’s silly.”
“It was silly then,” he says as he brings over the steeping tea pot, “and it’s silly now: his Korean is better than mine.”
Krolia is quiet, watching him settle in across from them with that look Keith was used to his mother having, before she announces cool as can be, “It has been many years since I saw Eun-Jung read Korean.”
That stops Keith in his tracts.
“What– what did you just say?”
Krolia looks at him, an eyebrow raised. “Your father was literate.”
“No, Mom, not that bit — what did you say before that?”
Shiro catches on before she does, his mouth making an o shape as Krolia looks between them. “Your mate’s name,” he clarifies on Keith’s behalf.
“Eun-Jung?” She looks at Keith and asks, “What it is? Have I said it wrong?”
“I….” Keith doesn’t know where to start, doesn’t want to burden his mother once more with a reminder of how he suffered without her, but also doesn’t want to hide a reality she is aware of that Shiro was helping him heal from now. “I’ve never heard that name before, for Pops — you've never said it, and I thought his name was John.”
“John?” Krolia asks. “He… in Korean… did he never…?”
“We actually,” Shiro says, taking over pouring out their tea, “had not yet confirmed that Keith was Korean, that had only been a hunch. We’ve never found a record indicative of your mate having a Korean name.”
Keith watches his mother figure out what pieces she had that he wasn’t even aware had been missing, reaching out across the table to take his hand as she processes. “I… have never fully understood, human culture, but I know that….” She pauses, breathing deeply, before meeting her son’s eyes. “He told me his name was Eun-Jung. He said he had multiple names, in different languages, but I never understood the subtleties of what it all meant. Did he… never tell you these things?”
“Never,” Keith breathes, looking to Shiro who is quiet, studying him, as if waiting to see how best he can support his husband. “Pops… Pops died before he told me these things.” It’s the only thing that makes sense, Shiro nodding as if he’d come to the same conclusion. “I don’t remember… a lot of what he did tell me.”
That night he dreams of his father at the kitchen table, scribbling things Keith can’t read as he sits on his father’s lap. He can see his father’s handwriting so clearly but cannot read it — it’s Korean.
He wakes with a start, Shiro beside him adjusting to Keith’s movements, and it clicks that it hadn’t been because his father was writing in English too advanced for Keith’s age at the time.
He’d been writing in Korean, and Keith had missed it.
Matt waits for them patiently, the last two off Atlas on her latest return to Earth. Shiro and Matt make pleasant conversation as they make their ways to the Shirogane quarters on base, Keith too exhausted from his latest Blade mission to take much of it in; he’d barely won the scuffle with Shiro to carry their bags, Shiro’s chronic pain having flared up making it difficult to use his prosthetic the last few days. But Shiro is doing well enough to hold up his end of a conversation, and Keith is doing well enough to carry their bags over each shoulder: it works.
“By the way,” Matt comments as Keith drops the bags in their main room, Shiro opening the window to let in fresh air, “I have the files you’d asked me to find. It’s not a lot, and I didn’t want to look at the contents too much, but…,” and Matt points at the dining table. “Lemme know if you need more from me.”
“Thank you, Matt,” Shiro says, Keith’s mind processing what files these were before realizing. His husband wraps his arm around Keith’s shoulders. “We’ll see you tomorrow at your parents’, this one needs to sleep for now.”
After a very long nap — which, Keith is sure to remind Shiro, they both desperately needed — they have a quiet dinner of ramen and tea, Kosmo laying under the table as the sun sets.
“We can go out into the desert,” Shiro suggests, smiling to the side at Keith. “Remind you of–”
“Should I open it?” Keith interrupts, because he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about what Matt had left them since he woke up. The manilla envelope seems innocent enough… too innocent, in Keith’s opinion.
“I mean,” and Shiro sits back, throwing his napkin onto the table. That signals Kosmo to move, filling the space between Shiro’s spread legs to press his head into his father’s stomach. “It’s your choice, Keith, either way, but we did discuss this all those years ago and clearly the question persists. Especially with what your mother was able to tell us… can you really continue to not know? We’ve confirmed you’re Korean but there’s still so much more.”
Keith turns that over, squeezing his eyes shut until he sees red spots in the black, reaching out a hand that Shiro takes immediately. “I… I’m scared, Taka.”
“I don’t blame you, I would be scared too, but Aki,” and Shiro cups his face, forcing Keith to look at him. “I am here, no matter what we find, and I love you, no matter what story it is we find that led to you existing in the world. Because you are my world, and I want you to have everything you desire. We are doing this together: you lead the way.”
On his own, Keith would never have dared to even hope for answers, never been able to form the questions. But with Shiro, Keith knows he can do anything.
The envelope slides easily across the table, giving way to its contents. Shiro shifts his chair over, to better see, as Keith lays the papers on the table to inspect.
Keith’s birth certificate, listing his father as John Kogane. His father’s death certificate, listing the same, though the names of his grandparents have been…
“Redacted?” Keith asks, looking at Shiro.
“Why would you redact names on a death certificate?” Shiro frowns, leaning in. “Look at this,” and the next page is a residency form of some kind though Keith doesn’t recognize the government form number. His grandparents’ names are once again redacted but, more oddly–
“‘Non white’,” Keith reads. “How old is this form?”
“I didn’t think the American government recorded that anymore.” Shiro frowns, Keith hearing the underlying concern.
“After WWIII, for a while, I think a lot of forms had it brought back. But this form has to be from way after the war,” and Keith turns it over, finding nothing on the back to help illuminate when it’s from. “I think the immigration system was still messed up but… they….” Then his mind clicks, looking at Shiro. “Were they immigrants?” It’s rhetorical, Shiro wouldn’t know, but that makes his husband nod as he thinks.
“Is there an immigration form? I know what it would include.” Keith shuffles further down the paper to see Matt had, in fact, managed to get an immigration document that’s more redacted than the rest. But there’s clearly two adults and a child, entering the US somewhere in California. “Keith?”
“Oh my gods,” Keith breathes. “I thought Pops was born here.” He looks at Shiro, wide eyed. “He never told me he was….” He sees now how much his father took to the grave.
“What we can do,” Shiro comforts, “is submit a formal request for the full set of immigration paperwork: I did that, when I became an officer, to have my own copy. Then there shouldn’t be redactions, since you’re their descendant, I can show you what mine looks–”
“Taka?” Keith interrupts, letting the papers fall back to the table.
“Keith?” Shiro quiets, waiting for him, and Keith realizes he’s crying, looking at his hands, at his husband’s hand, at the papers that held a story he had had no idea about.
“Taka,” and Keith doesn’t know what else to say, breaking down as the weight of it all comes crashing down on him, falling into his husband’s chest. And Shiro holds him, doesn’t make him say anything, letting him think and feel and be.
He hadn’t known.
Keith hadn’t known.
“I love you,” Shiro breathes, and Keith desperately clings to that.
The coalition’s latest diplomacy extravaganza sees Shiro heading to Japan for the first time since he left as a teenager, Keith piloting Black for them. It would be a short tour, not the leisurely trip they had hoped for where Shiro could revisit the sites of his youth and share with Keith what he wants. Instead they’ve three cities they’re hitting — Tokyo, Kyoto, and Kobe — where Shiro would give speeches, in Japanese, to get the Japanese aerospace industry’s support as well as resurrect an old Galaxy Garrison location Japan had once hosted.
In Tokyo they mostly wear their uniforms, Shiro changing them into traditional garments for a ceremony with the government that they attend. Otherwise it’s a lot of being driven around in swooshy cars, watching Shiro give speeches in perfectly annunciated Standard Japanese, before spending their nights in the nicest hotel room in all of Japan.
“I don’t like the way they speak here,” Keith comments as he lays on Shiro’s chest, both men sweaty from their latest round of sex, Shiro’s arm curled low around his back. “It doesn’t sound as nice as your dialect.” That makes Shiro chuckle, kissing Keith’s forehead between where bangs stick to his skin.
Beyond the dialect difference, Keith is perfectly comfortable being spoken to in Japanese, or wearing traditional clothing, especially once they arrive in Kyoto where the fanfare is that much more for the city welcoming home its son. Sure, too many people are weird when Shiro introduces his husband Akira Shirogane, but Keith had known to expect that, had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t let it bother him so he could support Shiro in pushing past it. They were married and if these people didn’t like it, they could fuck off — they had come to see Shiro and Keith, after all, so that meant they had to accept they were married.
They don’t linger long in Kyoto, which Keith suspects is because Shiro doesn’t know how to, doesn’t know what he wants in that moment, but it’s a start so they move on to Kobe where they have a day to themselves once the speeches are done, staying in a traditional inn where they can finally catch their breaths before their trip back to base.
That is, until the inn keeper brings them visitors.
Shiro in his juban, right shoulder out and exposed, is far more panicked than Keith feels is necessary given that he’s the savior of the universe and also looked like a sex god no matter how he was dressed, musculature clearly on display. But his husband is as he is, Keith in his jinbei answering the door to find…
“Uh, hello?” Keith asks of the two men standing there.
“May we speak with you?”
“Um,” and Keith looks over his shoulder to see Shiro has pulled on a sweater over himself where he’s sat under the chabudai. “Sure, come on in. I apologize that we hadn’t been expecting visitors.”
The men don’t venture too far into the room, Keith hovering with them as if waiting for someone to make the next move.
Shiro, bless him, bows his head and speaks first. “Gentlemen, to what do we owe the honor of your visit?”
The men look at each other before seeming to silently agree, one of the men answering, “We wish to ask that you visit Seoul before returning to the United States.”
“Seoul?” Shiro looks at Keith who shakes his head, not sure where this was going. They had discussed if they should visit Korea while they were here but Keith hadn’t felt they had enough information yet to make valuable progress in recreating his family history. “As a formal delegation of the Voltron Coalition?”
The man who’d spoken shakes his head. “This is a special request to a private citizen.” He turns to Keith. “To you.”
“Me?” Keith asks. “To do what?”
“Everything will be handled,” the other man says, “and conducted in English. We understand you have been requesting records of your family’s past. We would like you to come so that we may present a more complete picture, for you.”
Oh! “Uh,” and Keith looks to Shiro who gives that little head tilt that says it was Keith’s choice. “My husband and I are a package deal.” One of the men nods.
“We understand.” He produces an envelope from inside his jacket, handing it to Keith. “All necessary information is in there; please let us know what you decide.” The men shake his hand before leaving, Keith turning to Shiro who looks as confused as he feels.
“Well,” Shiro smiles, “what’s the envelope got in it?” Keith hands him the envelope, sitting beside his husband and replaying the interaction in his mind. The men had seemed tense, like they weren’t comfortable and wanted to be done with this as quickly as they could. Normally people who seemed uncomfortable with them were so because they were the Black Paladins, but the men hadn’t shaken Shiro’s hand when they left, an anomaly given that everything tended to revolve around him. “Hey,” and Shiro bumps their shoulders together, bringing Keith back to reality. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry… that was weird, right?”
Shiro hums, opening the envelope to unfold its contents. “I like when people fawn over you: you deserve it.”
“You’re biased on that front, Husband.” Over his shoulder, Keith’s eyes scan the letter, jumping all over as what it says sends his thoughts flying.
earliest record currently available being for Eun-Yeong Choi
wartime immigration of Ji-Hun Kim and his wife
emigration of Dae-Seong Kim and his family
last recorded government contact with Eun-Jung Kim
“Kim,” Keith breathes, taking the letter from Shiro to hold it close. Krolia had said Eun-Jung was his father’s Korean name: his name had been Eun-Jung Kim.
Keith’s Korean surname was Kim.
“Kogane is the Japanese equivalent of Kim,” Shiro comments, Keith looking at him and blinking. “It’s a very common Korean surname,” he explains. “Look, it even shares a character,” and Shiro points to where the name is written in… hanja, Keith thinks that’s what Chinese characters are called in Korean. “This character,” and Shiro moves to pull closer his data pad, writing two kanji, 黄金, “it’s the same as the second one here.”
“Kim,” Keith repeats, looking at his husband’s imperfect and loving handwriting compared to the impersonal perfection of the typed letters. “Shiro… Shiro, they…” but he doesn’t know what to say, his mind still spinning.
“Hey,” and Shiro leans forward to meet his gaze. He smiles for him, sweet and soft, gentle because Keith needs that. “If you want to go, we can go, but if you don’t want to, we’ll return home and do more research there. You don’t have to decide today if you’re not sure.”
Keith looks at the letter, imagining taking it back to the garrison, to sitting with it on Atlas as he fills in requests for more.
But they were already in southern Japan, and Shiro was with him, and there were people in Seoul who apparently had found the answers he was looking for.
His Korean surname is Kim.
“I want to go.”
Shiro smiles, and nods, and kisses him. “Then let’s go.”
Keith was used to arriving places where Shiro is swarmed with welcomes and gifts. He didn’t mind it in the least, because he hated being the center of attention, much preferred being the one at Shiro’s side, the one Shiro turns to when all eyes are on him, because Shiro needed Keith among all the people in the universe who worship at his feet. That’s how things were, and that was more than fine.
When they land in Seoul, exiting Black, the committee that greets them has eyes for Keith and Keith alone. People shake his hand, telling him how honored they are to be meeting the great Black Paladin, the leader of Voltron, Shiro trailing behind as Keith is moved towards some building. In a panic he tries to look over his shoulder, to see Shiro smiling with something in his eyes, something Keith can’t describe, taking in Keith like he can never look away. Keith wonders if that’s how he looks, when Shiro looks over his shoulder to find him.
They’re settled into a private meeting room, Keith the one introducing Shiro as his husband to a room that seems mildly annoyed, though Keith isn’t sure if that’s because they’re two men or Shiro is to them a hanger-on like Keith must have seemed in Japan or something else entirely. WWIII had caused some amount of lasting tension, between Japan and Korea, which only now Keith realizes put Shiro in an awkward position.
But under the table, Shiro moves his hand to Keith’s leg, and that grounds him enough to focus on the meeting; the rest could wait.
They’re having their agenda for the next few days explained to them, a tour of the capital designed to allow Keith to see the highlights of the city and also, if he would indulge them, engage in some photo shoots. There would be private tour guides, all fluent in English, to explain everything as they went, answering all questions about the history of these places and local practices unique to Korea.
“We wish to ensure you leave feeling rejuvenated in your Korean heritage,” someone comments, almost a throw away comment, but Keith pounces on it.
“Not to interrupt,” and all eyes turn to him, Shiro squeezing his thigh, “but can I just….” He thinks for a moment, taking a breath, like Shiro had taught him years ago to do when he’s overwhelmed. “My father died, when I was young, so much was taken from me before he could share our family history with me.” The woman Keith suspects is in charge nods, so he continues. “Until we were invited here, I actually had seen no legal confirmation of my being Korean.”
That silences the room.
“We had suspected,” Keith says, looking to Shiro who had been quiet so far but smiles at him and nods, “but were still trying to trace the past.”
The woman in charge thinks for a moment before standing, speaking to the person beside her in quick and low Korean. That person leaves the room quickly, the woman explaining, “Ahead of your arrival, we collected a number of pertinent records we can present to you now. We will have more tomorrow, but perhaps after this it is best to allow you and… your husband, to retire to the hotel and rest.” The person who had left comes back with the thickest binder Keith has ever seen, handing it to him.
Down its cover is written 金明, Shiro pointing at the last character and whispering in his ear, “That’s your Japanese name’s kanji.”
“Is this…” Keith asks, looking up at the woman in charge. She nods her head, as if understanding the question Keith can’t bring himself to ask.
“Your name, in Korean, was registered by your father as Myeong Kim.”
Shiro is laying on the bed, reading from the binder, when Keith comes out of the shower. “I love the irony,” Shiro murmurs, “that you were drawn to a character in Japanese that is part of your name in Korean — a name you didn't know you had.” Then his husband looks up and smiles at him, that goofy smile Keith loves that he hasn’t seen since they arrived in Seoul. “My Myeong.”
“You’re having too much fun saying that name.” Keith climbs over Shiro, no care for the man’s comfort, because if he was going to act a sappy fool, he should have to live with the consequences of that. “I can’t believe Pops had them register a Korean name for me that…that I never knew I had.”
“Maybe,” and Shiro shifts Keith so he’s not laying on top of him but instead little spoon, “it’s in one of your locked memories, something from your childhood that your mind tucked away.”
Keith nods, drawing Shiro’s arm to his chest to hold tightly, centering himself on the presence of his husband around him, how warm Shiro is, how loving and tender and kind, how no matter what this binder contained, Shiro was his and he was Shiro’s. He deserved to have the answers to his questions, the story of his family’s past: Shiro had taught him that.
“You ok?” Shiro asks, kissing the skin behind his ear.
“Overwhelmed,” Keith admits. “I don’t like being the center of attention, and then I’m the one they expect to talk, and then there’s all this on top of it… it’s a lot.”
“If you need me to, I can make excuses for tomorrow.”
Keith turns in Shiro’s arm, looking into his husband’s face and asking, “And what about you, are you ok? I know you’re not exactly their favorite person here.”
“Eh.” Shiro smiles, weakly. “We’re not here for me, we’re here for you, and besides you are more than happy to stay with me when I’m the center of attention.”
“Well yeah, but normally the thing we’re facing is homophobia. There’s something else, and you know it, and I can sense it but….” Keith sighs. “Taka?”
“A lot happened, during the war.” Keith knows he means WWIII. “Especially given that you’d family moving between Japan and Korea, during the war, I… I suspect there’s going to be less than happy things in that binder.” Shiro pulls him as close as he can, kissing him sweetly, like he’s imagining the war again, the one they just survived.
“You don’t have to…,” Keith starts but Shiro is already shaking his head, smiling sadly.
“We’re in this together.” Shiro rubs his nose along Keith’s cheek, across the cut. “Ready?”
Keith takes a deep breath that he lets out slowly. “Ready.”
The morning comes unwelcomed after the blur of the night. There hadn’t been enough sleep between them for one man let alone two, but they’d done it.
They’d made it through the whole damn binder.
There were still pieces missing, of course, official documents made everything feel cold and distant. They’d captured none of the warmth of Keith’s father, nor the love his family might have had, the choices they had made and if they’d been easy or a struggle. He doesn’t know what anyone looked like, or what foods they liked, or if they were morning or evening people. But he does know their names, and that they existed, and that’s more than enough for now.
Shiro is half asleep on his back, diagonal across the bed; normally it was Keith taking up too much space but he’d oscillated over night between pacing the room while Shiro read to him and laying across Shiro in even weirder positions to read aloud himself.
Keith lays as gently as he can beside Shiro, curling up around him to kiss his cheek.
“I’m awake,” Shiro murmurs, all slurred words from exhaustion.
“No you’re not: go back to sleep.” Keith shifts to lay his head on Shiro’s chest, hand over his heart. “Thank you, Takashi.” Shiro’s hand lays across his.
“Anything for you, Akira.”
When he wakes again, it’s to the smell of tea and rice. “Where am I?” Keith manages, pushing his body up. He hears Shiro’s chuckle, the man coming into view with his prosthetic on and a cup of tea.
“Red tea to start the day.”
Keith looks at him, vision fuzzy, and very confidently asks, “What the fuck is red tea?”
Despite the bags under his eyes, Shiro grins, leaning down to steal a kiss. “In the West, it’s called black tea.”
He turns that over in his mind. “Why?”
“Babe, I don’t pretend to understand white people.”
Once the caffeine hits, Keith propped up watching Shiro at the table eating breakfast and writing, he manages to put two and two together. “What are you doing and why are you more functional right now than I am?”
“In reverse order,” Shiro answers without looking up from the binder in his lap, “you were more emotionally drained yesterday than me plus I probably slept longer and better, and I’m making a….” He fumbles a little in trying to move the binder and pick up his data pad, grimacing at Keith in embarrassment; Shiro had no right to be so cute while also a sex god built like a tank. “Uh, tada!” He holds up his data pad, Keith making a gimme hand until Shiro brings it over, settling in next to him where he’s still in bed. “I find this easier to understand.”
The branches of the tree are incomplete so far but the line from Keith back to his earliest ancestor in the binder is made clear in Shiro’s list:
Keith Kogane
金明 Myeong Kim 김 명
born in US, registered with Korean govt as foreign birthJohn Kogane
金恩貞 Eun-Jung Kim 김 은정
黄金淳 Jun Kogane
born in Korea, immigrated to US as toddler金大成 Dae-Seong Kim 김 대성
黄金大地 Daichi Kogane
born in Korea, immigrated to US with wife (李瑞賢 Seo-Hyeon Lee 이 서현) and son (Eun-Jung Kim)
why leave Korea? family had recently returned — because of war aftermath?黄金智 Satoshi Kogane
金智 Ji-Hun Kim 김 지훈
born in Japan, immigrated to Korea with wife (森山梅 Ume Kogane) during the war
changed Korean family name to match Japanese one? 金/Kim/Kogane文明 Myeong Moon 문 명
黄金英明 Hideaki Kogane
born in Korea, immigrated to Japan as child where adopted Japanese name along with step-father’s surname崔恩英 Eun-Yeong Choi 최 은영
黄金英子 Eiko Kogane
born in Korea, immigrated to Japan with children (how many?) where married 黄金英雄 Hideo Kogane
had lost first husband (when? how?) prompting move to Japan?
adopted Japanese name including taking husband’s surname
“An interesting thing I noticed,” Shiro says after a while, once Keith’s eyes start darting about, “is look at how there’s overlap between a lot of the Japanese and Korean names, in the characters used.” He points out Myeong and Hideaki, 明 and 英明; Satoshi and Ji-Hun, both written 智; Dae-Seong and Daichi, 大成 and 大地; and, the most interesting new person to Keith, Eun-Yeong and Eiko, 恩英 and 英子. “It has to be intentional.”
“My father’s name doesn’t have that.”
“It doesn’t,” Shiro agrees, “which makes me wonder… see, these two moved to Japan, and we know Eun-Yeong had at least one other child she took to Japan though we don’t have the record yet about them.” He points at Eun-Yeong and Myeong — the Myeong, Keith supposes, he must be named after. “Alright, we don’t know the reason for the move but we do know it’s typical for those who move to Japan to take on a Japanese name. Let us imagine Hideo Kogane was the one who found Japanese versions of their names, to help his family assimilate.” Shiro shifts, Keith handing him back the data pad in favor of leaning against his husband and studying the lines of his face as he furrows his brow, explaining what he thinks he’s pieced together. “You can even see, Myeong picks up a character from his mother’s and step-father’s name in Japanese, so this must have been intentional, to blend their families, maybe part of a tradition in naming Kogane children? Now Myeong, or Hideaki since he lived in Japan as an adult, has at least one son: imagine if you will,” Shiro begins, looking down at Keith and smiling. “Imagine a Japanese-Korean family. There is a child about to be born. How will the child be named?”
They’d discussed this themselves: “A name in Japanese and a name in Korean; if the names are related in some way, even better.”
“Exactly!” Shiro is so proud of himself, grinning wickedly, dimples on full display. “He must have thought the same way we did, so his son is given a name which, with the same character, names him in Japanese and Korean: Satoshi and Ji-Hun respectively. That makes sense.
“Now for whatever reason, Satoshi, let’s call him, left Japan to go back to Korea. This was during the war, he’d been born and raised in Japan, married a Japanese woman, but chooses to go back to the place of his father’s birth, even with all the tension the war brought about around the Sea of Japan.”
“Sea of Korea,” Keith corrects, to be a little shit.
“We’re not getting into that right now — what I don’t get,” and Shiro leans back, rubbing his face with both hands, “is why. Why not stay where you are safe, and accepted, unless perhaps they weren’t safe or accepted? Do you see, it all starts to come together.”
Keith thinks that over before deciding, “I don’t follow.”
“Look,” and Shiro scrolls up the page, “do you see what happens here?” Keith shakes his head. “Kogane becomes Kim: I think he did that, your great-grandfather changed the Korean family name to match the Japanese one, when the family essentially returned to Korea. I’m pretty sure I saw Ji-Hun Moon listed somewhere, which makes sense since his father was born a Moon, so he made this very intentional choice.”
“Alright,” and Keith shifts to sit up, facing his husband fully. “They move from Korea to Japan, presumably to improve their situation in some way, and then a generation later, move back from Japan to Korea, again to improve their situation. The family name gets changed, that… that makes sense, I think.” Keith runs it over in his mind. “I guess maybe I’d consider the children’s Korean name not being Kim but being….” His mind draws a blank. “What’s ‘silver’ in Korean?”
“Eun,” Shiro supplies, writing it out, 銀, the familiar character of Shiro’s name. “If I’d been in their position, I’d have wanted to blend in: sure Satoshi was Korean through his father, but he wasn’t born and raised there, and his wife might not have been familiar with the language and customs at all. But you can see their son’s name, again there’s this shared character, between Dae-Seong and Daichi, even though they were no longer living in Japan, so now the family custom is reversed in a way but they keep up this heritage of both languages.”
Keith is starting to worry about how much Shiro did sleep last night, that he’s given it this much thought so far.
“I’m not losing it,” Shiro protests, as if reading his mind. “At this point in the story, Dae-Seong marries and has your father, in Korea, but then the family… moves to the US. Why? His parents had only just moved to Korea, presumably because of the war, but the war was over around the time he was born — was there still fallout from the war impacting them? Did they not feel like they belonged there? And look, your father’s name, do you see it?” Keith studies his father’s name before he spots what Shiro has been working up to.
“His Korean and Japanese names don’t share any characters.” They sounded similar enough, to his ear, Jung and Jun, that he hadn’t clocked how their written form might diverge. “What does that prove?”
“What if,” and Shiro leans forward, entirely too into his husband’s family tree for Keith to think more caffeine was good for him today, “Dae-Seong and, I will remember this, Seo-Hyeon? Yeah, Seo-Hyeon, what if they didn’t know enough about Japanese names? What if whatever compelled them to leave Korea, also kept them from being able to name your father the way his father and his father’s father and his father’s father’s father had been named: what if they were trying to keep up the family tradition, but weren’t able to fully embrace that part of the Kim family history?”
Keith takes back the data pad, scrolling up and down, looking at the names: Eun-Yeong Choi, Hideaki Kogane, Ji-Hun Kim, Dae-Seong Kim, John Kogane. “Takashi?”
“Hmm?”
“When…,” but he hesitates, shaking his head, needing to ask in English to better explain himself. “When you look back at your family history, are you filled with questions or answers?” He looks up to see his husband frowning, nose scrunched up, as he thinks about that.
“Both?” Shiro offers. “I know, up my male line, quite a lot, and we’ve family records along with the oral history. But I don’t know a lot about the women of my family, nor about the children that were born but aren’t my direct ancestors. I don’t know if I’d had cousins at some point, no matter how distant. I know what led to me, being the head of the Shirogane family, and all of the men who came before me as head, but I will never know the rest.”
“And you’ve made peace with that?” Keith asks.
Shiro shrugs. “I don’t know what other option there is. One day,” and he takes Keith’s hand, drawing it to his lips to kiss, “our children will hear the stories of the Shirogane family, but I will include those of Etsuko, of Masako and Emi, of the women along with the men. I cannot change what was handed down to me but I can change what I hand down. I can do my best to explain, to understand, to make sense of what led to here.” Shiro smiles, open and sad and loving and vulnerable, a smile only Keith gets to see. “And our children will hear these stories too—“ he gestures to the data pad “—of the Moon family moving to Japan, of the Kogane family moving to Korea, of the Kim family moving to the US. We will tell them, best we can, and maybe that’s all we can do, Husband.”
The things Keith found hard, Shiro made easy, and he loves him so much for that, crawling to sit in his lap and kiss his husband, hold him in his arms and let the worry and aching of what was lost dissipate. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you.” Shiro squeezes him in understanding, protecting Keith from the outside world. “I wonder how much of this my father had known, and maybe… maybe he had wanted to tell me but didn’t know how. I don’t know how I’ll tell our children.” Keith presses into Shiro’s shoulder, breathing deeply the scent of the man.
“Maybe,” Shiro offers, “none of them knew how to tell the story of those who came before them. Maybe they all struggled.”
The room is quiet, only the occasional sound of someone passing by in the hallway, as Keith takes everything in, preparing for the day ahead and what new information it might bring. “Perhaps,” he whispers, “they felt like me.”
“In what way?”
Keith pulls back to look at Shiro, those gray eyes that have only ever loved him, stroking along the scar of his nose. “Perhaps they never felt like they truly belonged, trying to fit in but never quite managing it. I never felt like I belonged until I left Earth, until we were in space and I found… I don’t know how to put it.”
“A separate peace?” Shiro asks with too much cheek. “It’s a book, I read it when I was learning English.”
“Sure,” Keith agrees, “a separate peace. Even now, I don’t feel like I belong most places, but I know I belong with you.” He presses their foreheads together. “You are my home.”
“That could be the Kim-Kogane legacy,” Shiro suggests. “It could be that they never had a place to call home, in Korea or Japan or the US, but they had people to call family. And a life filled with love is surely the best we can hope for — that’s what my life has led me to believe.”
Keith hopes that’s true, that these names on pages had been people who loved and were loved in return, like Keith and Shiro for each other. “I guess I do have answers,” Keith murmurs, “even if they’re not for the questions I’d asked.” Shiro kisses his cheek, and Keith feels settled.
Keith is gifted a hanbok to wear, someone having to help him dress properly since Shiro didn’t know the intricacies of it and Keith didn’t even know what a hanbok technically was. And for his part Shiro appears to be doing his best to fly under the radar, though at 6’4” and looking like he does, it’s hard; but he tries, Western clothing to be respectful, following a step after Keith everywhere as Keith typically did to him.
They’re taken to historical sites, Keith needing everything explained to him but feeling awful for it — so Shiro asks questions, lots of them, to make it seem like he’s the one who doesn’t know. Keith falls in love with him all over again for it, because Shiro always knew how to cover over Keith’s discomfort in front of others. There’s parks and buildings and memorials and then there’s a public ceremony at the end of the day, the pair waiting at the top of the stairs as the officials around them get into position.
“I love you,” Keith whispers in hushed Japanese, Shiro smiling.
“I love you,” he whispers back in Korean, and Keith wants so much to take his hand and pull him down to kiss, but there’s at least two dozen photographers watching them and neither of them were big on PDAs.
Finally a low ranking official comes over, to guide Keith to where they want him to stand, Shiro following at a distance. The official shouts something that Keith misses most of, turning to Shiro on instinct to translate.
“What side you stand on,” Shiro says before paling, a number of the Korean officials around them turning towards him. He had, after all, done a very good job keeping quiet that he understood Korean and quite a lot of it.
“You,” one of the handlers starts, “speak Korean?”
“Uh,” and Shiro looks to Keith who shrugs, nodding. “Yes, I, uh, I learned for Myeong. I am still learning, please forgive my mistakes.”
“You are a good friend,” another handler says, trying to move Keith, but Keith ain’t having it.
“He’s my husband,” he snaps, staring down the person.
“Pardon?”
“Shiro is my husband, not my ‘good friend’.” Keith might not have been one to always stand up for himself, having learned early and fast that the world would constantly punch him down and hitting back only made it worse sometimes, but no one slandered Shiro, especially given how Shiro had calmly pushed back in Japan that Keith was his husband and would be respected as such. “If you cannot respect that, we will leave.” Well, Shiro was the calm one: Keith was filled with fire and currently in a position of power. “Apologize,” he demands.
“Keith,” Shiro softly breathes but Keith shakes his head. Shiro never allowed Keith to be spoken down to, he deserved the same in return.
“I– I’m sorry,” the person stammers before leaving, someone else coming forward.
By the time the ceremony is done, Shiro is being treated a lot more respectfully. Good.
After days of being paraded about, Keith and Shiro manage to slip their handlers to visit a historical site of their own choosing, Namsangol hanok maeul, a village filled with traditional houses. Keith thinks they’re fun to look at, sure, but it’s seeing Shiro’s delight at each hanok that makes the trip worth it.
“Babe,” Shiro half-whines as Keith meanders over to his side, “look: under floor heating.”
“Why do I feel like this is less a pretty tourist site for you and more an inspiration opportunity for our house?”
Shiro looks up, having clearly not been listening, and repeats, “Under floor heating, babe!”
“Yup, we can have under floor heating if you want.” Keith had wanted to get away from the attention of others for the day but he had definitely underestimated why Shiro had suggested this place, wrapping his arms around his husband’s waist to press against him from behind. “You’re really studying all this, huh?”
“I love it,” Shiro breathes immediately and Keith can hear the smile in his words. “Our house shouldn’t just be Japanese, it should be Korean too, in a good way, to represent our family.”
A house, to Keith, had been a place with a door that locked and a toilet that flushed: everything else was superfluous luxury that he hadn’t been entitled too. But to hear Shiro talk about the house he was designing for them, about how he imagined each room would be used and filled with love and friends and children and memories, Keith starts to think he can see what it is that makes a house a home.
“Gajeong,” Shiro says happily to himself, the same Korean word he’s been repeating all day as he takes pictures of the buildings: home. “Very exciting,” he adds in Korean, taking Keith’s hand and dragging him further down the street.
The man was so weird and Keith loved him so much for it.
“Ya know,” Shiro murmurs as they enjoy their ice cream after a long day of strolling, “Chuseok is coming up in about a month.” The holiday Keith had remembered, all those years ago, before Kerberos and the war and Shiro’s arm and their marriage.
“Do you think,” Keith muses, “the festival Pops took me to will ever come back? I’d like to take the children some day.” He can see now how his father had tried, had tried his best with what he had to keep their Korean heritage alive and pass it on to Keith. It had brought Keith this far, to this place: his father had been successful after all.
“I bet,” Shiro starts, knocking their knees together where they’re sat on the bench they’d found, “that if the Black Paladin of Voltron publicly announced how he remembers that celebration fondly, people will want to put the festival back on.”
“Hmm.” Keith leans over to steal a bite of Shiro’s ice cream, warming to that thought.
There were questions unanswered. There were people without names and stories. There were gaps that would never be filled.
But now it’s Keith’s story, to share with his family, and he knew enough to start sharing it.