Chapter Text
“Why do you always have to make us late Hunk?” Pidge asked she narrowed her eyes as their friend took another bite of his subway sandwich. He shrugged and offered the sandwich to her.
“Sorry I was hungry. Want a bite?” He offered her an apologetic smile. “Didn’t know they’d run out of mayonnaise.”
“Oh lay off him, it’s not like you didn’t want something there,” Lance said as he pulled out a piece of a paper. He stopped in front his room dorm room and slowly typed in numbers into the keypad.
“I just wanted a bottle of water.” She crossed her arms and peeked over his shoulder. “Do you really still not know your passcode yet?” Lance looked at her over his shoulder and scoffed.
“Uh no, I just like double checking duh.” The light on the door turned green and he opened it up. “Now get in before I lock you out.”
“You would never, I’m the only one who remembers the channel the show is on.” She walked in with her chin tilted up. Hunk and Lance shared a look, Lance rolled his eyes and walked inside.
“You hold on to that bit of leverage tightly don’t you Pidge?” Hunk asked, he took his bag off and placed it by Lance’s door. Lance stepped in after them and closed the door behind them. There was a click as it locked.
Pidge had already made herself comfortable on Lance’s bed. Hunk grabbed the remote off of the empty top bunk and threw it to her. She fumbled with it until it fell to the floor. She groaned and reached for it without putting any real effort in. Lance looked between her and the remote inches away from her.
“Really?” Lance sighed and bent down picking up the remote and handing it to her. She smiled and grabbed the remote pointing it towards the TV.
“Thank you.” She hummed as she began flipping through the channels. Hunk sat on the bed opposite from Pidge.
“Will there even be subtitles?” Lance asked and sat on the ground in the middle of the two beds. Hunk shrugged he had stopped asking that question a while ago.
“Probably not until tomorrow,” Pidge said casually, she found the channel and clicked on it. Lance watched as an older Asian man holding an octopus appeared on the screen. The image wasn’t actually moving and there were just Asian characters in big dramatic font next to him.
“So tell me again how we’re supposed to understand what’s happening. Not everyone reads Korean like you.” Lance looked at Pidge his eyes raised, he half expected her to pull out a headset language translator.
“Context clues,” Pidge said simply. The still image left the TV screen, now the same Asian man was standing next to three polls. There were was a girl and two boys standing behind the polls, they each had three octopi balanced on their heads.
“Uh, Lance. I don’t want to interrupt your TV viewing experience, but where’s the popcorn?” Hunk asked slowly, he had finished his sandwich and crumpled up the wrapper.
“Didn’t we eat it all last time?” Pidge asked they both looked at Lance.
“Yeah, we did.” Lance stood up and stretched his back out. “I don’t have another bag, I’ll have to run to the campus store and get one or...” He smirked and pushed back his hair with his hand. “I can hear next door, and see if Allurah would be interested in helping me out.” Pidge rolled her eyes and turned back to the television. Each contestant now held an oversized helmet and was staring intently at a pool of whipped cream.
“Whatever you need to do to get us whipped cream,” Pidge mumbled, she grabbed a pillow and rested her head on top of it.
“Do you mean popcorn?” Hunk asked, Pidge wasn’t paying attention and didn't answer back. Hunk turned back to Lance. “She means popcorn. Thanks, buddy.” He rested his back on the wall and continued watching the show.
Lance walked to the mirror scanning over himself to make sure everything was in place. He flattened his shirt and pushed back his hair. He practiced a few faces in the mirror landing on a charming smile.
“Why hello Allurah, fancy seeing you here.” He deepened his voice to try and sound as smooth as possible.
“Lance! Popcorn!” Pidge called, Lance jumped and glared in her direction. She wasn’t even looking at him.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” He grumbled and walked out of the room. He headed to the dorm room directly in front of his. He took a deep breath and tried to puff out his chest slightly. He knocked on the door twice, then slipped his hands into his pocket. “Caz, I am caz...” He cleared his throat once more. The door opened a crack, then opened fully.
“Keith! Lovely seeing you this time of day.” Allurah smiled at him, her white hair was tied back in a ponytail, showing off beautiful temporary face tattoos that she reapplied. There was classical music flowing out of her room.
“I--um.” He tried to compose himself, her face had caught him off guard. “Hello! I just wanted to know...if you had..popcorn?” He asked slowly. Allurah put her hand to her mouth hiding a small chuckle. Lance practically swooned.
“Yes, I believe I just bought a few bags. I’ll be right back.” She left her door room open as she disappeared inside. Lance only got a small peek inside, there were an art canvas and a few paintbrushes scattered on top of one of the beds. An idea dawned on him and he pulled out his phone. A few minutes later Allurah appeared back into the doorway with two large bags of popcorn.
“Will this suffice?”
“Yes! Of course, I was just wondering. Is this Beethoven's 7th Violin Concert or are my ears mistaking me?” He slipped his phone back into his pocket hoping he got the name right. Allurah giggled lightly and looked at Lance amused.
“I think you mean Concerto? And no actually this is just his 7th symphony.” She handed the bag over to him. “But lovely effort.”
“Damn phone app,” Lance mumbled as he took the bags over.
“What was that?”
“Nothing! Just this is a really good brand of popcorn. Thanks a ton.” He balanced the bags in his arm and gave Allurah a smile.
“Think nothing of it, have fun with your Korean show.” She slipped back into her room and shut the door. Lance sighed deeply, another failed attempt. He grumbled under his breath about stupid phone apps. He got to his door and realized he had forgotten his slip of paper.
“Damn it.” He sighed and knocked on the door with his knee.
“Lance is that you?” A very Pidge like voice asked from the other side of the door.
“Yes, and I have the popcorn now open up!”
“Why would I need to open the door if you already knew the passcode?” Lance was gearing up to take his popcorn and leave when Hunk opened the door. Lance huffed and entered, he slipped off his shoes and ignored the smug look on Pidges face.
“I reiterate, it’s almost two quarters of the year in and you still don’t know your passcode?” Pidge asked, at some point when Lance had left they had grabbed plastic bowls from the cupboard under Lance’s bed.
“It’s almost two quarters in and my roommate still hasn’t shown up.”
“I feel like those aren’t two fitting scenarios,” Pidge said, she sat up and extended her bowl forward.
“Fitting enough for me, I mean what rich kid doesn’t show up but keeps paying for a room?” Lance threw one popcorn bag on the ground and opened the other one. He poured Pidge a bowl then threw the rest of the bag to Hunk.
“You don’t want any Lance?” Hunk asked clutching the bag, he frowned and put down his bowl.
“No, not hungry.” He mumbled and sat criss-cross on the floor between the beds. He pulled out his phone exing out of the song identifier app. He clicked twitter and checked his notifications.
“Did you embarrass yourself at Allurah’s again?” Hunk asked carefully. Lance said nothing, he scrolled through his timeline.
“Let's take that as a yes,” Pidge said, she lowered the volume of the show. “Maybe you should give her up? I mean you’ve been crushing on her for like ever. You’re in college now time to--”
“I would love if you didn’t give me the ‘there are many fish in the sea’ speech. I think my parents mention that enough.” Lance mumbled still not looking up. The lights in his room where off, the TV and Lance’s phone were emitting the most amount of light. Pidge sighed and laid back on her stomach with her popcorn.
“Fine. Just know we’ll be there for you if you find a totally attractive person we’ll be there for you.” Hunk nodded his agreement and relaxed back against the wall.
Lance just nodded and drowned his misery in quoting tweets of celebrities and tweeting about how much of a loser he felt. He smiled a bit when some of his mutuals replied to him with hearts and ‘I love you sooo muches’. He sighed when after about 10 minutes he didn’t feel better he decided to re-do his layout. He used a picture of himself that he took the previous day. He was in front of a brick wall and had a crown of hearts. He found a header of a brick wall with the words ‘loverboy’ written on them in chalk. He smiled a bit and changed his username to ‘loverboy Lance’ in lowercase letters.
He let out a sigh or relief he was beginning to feel better already. He continued through his tl until he stopped at a picture, it was one of the sponsored commercials. It was an ad for some converse company. The model was sitting down, his knees were being hugged to his chest and his chin rested on top of his knees. He looked solemn but incredibly handsome like he was contemplating life. His converse where bright red and loosely untied.
“Hot damn,” Lance mumbled and clicked on the add. The tweet was expanded and showed the link to the models Instagram. The link took him to the models Instagram page. “Keith Kogane.” He said to himself, his words were muffled by Pidge and Hunks hysterical laughs. Lance glanced up to see an octopus wrapped around one of the very disgusted looking contestants.
He shook his head and continued scrolling through the mans Instagram. He was transfixed by every image, he did a couple commercials but a lot of the pictures seemed to just be of Keith. He admitted whoever was his photographer was doing an amazing job, but the light always seemed to light up Keith’s face in just the right way. Lance was already biting his lip by the time he got to a shirtless picture of him. He was caught off guard for a moment, he expected to see rippling abs like most of the Instagram models. Instead Keith’s stomach was flat with no abs and a V leading into his pants. He did look incredibly fit, but his body looked like it was too soft to have any sort of hard muscles like abs. Which was strange to think, in almost every photo he looked serious and or sullen. Incredibly handsome, but otherwise incredibly mysterious.
Lance took in a sharp breath nearly dropping his phone. His tan cheeks darkened with color. He cleared his throat and looked at the picture again. It was an advertisement he could see there was a link to the product. But the picture was so breathtaking Lance would love to see a couple more pictures like that. It was a close up of Keith’s face almost in an aerial position so that the camera approached his face. Keith was lightly blushing, he looked incredibly bashful and open. He had a pink makeup given to his lips. The color made his entire face pop, the effect was only exemplified by the pink daisies in his hair.
“Lance, you okay? You look like you’re burning up.” Hunk asked Lance didn’t turn to face him. He nodded his head in dismissal and continued scrolling. Now that he had come across that photo he realized that there were quite a few pictures of Keith in not typically masculine clothing. Never all out dresses or skirts, but enough femininity to make his mysteriousness look bashful and cute.
His hair was never too long more shaggy-looking but always tied up enough to look effortless. In one of the pictures, he had Minnie Mouse ears with the bow at the center of the scalp. He wasn’t smiling in that one but he looked his happiest. The more Lance looked the more captivated he became and the more certain that he had to talk to this guy.
He scrolled up to the top of the page nearly scoffing. The guy Keith had over a million followers already. He only follows one person in return. Lance rubbed the back of his head, doubting himself. If he couldn’t even start a conversation with a girl he’s known for years, and lives next door how was he supposed to start up a conversation with an incredibly attractive Instagram model? He took a huge breath and went to the DM’s. He closed his eyes and let his fingers do the talking.
[TheTailor: Hey sorry to bother you but I just wanted to inform you I’ve never wanted to buy a pair of a pair of converse more.]
He stared at the message for awhile he didn’t expect an immediate response or really a response at all but he felt like he had just taken an important step. He smiled and turned off his phone. He had no idea what was happening in the show but he felt a hundred times better about watching it. He wondered if Keith had a twitter or a Snapchat.
“Guys I think I’m in love,” Lance announced. Hunk and Pidge looked at him immediately.
“Did my speech really work?” Pidge said in awe, she had muted the TV and sat up immediately.
“With who!” Hunk asked e ate another handful of popcorn.
“This Instagram mo--” Pidge held up her hand cutting Lance off.
“Do you know them in real life?” She asked adjusting her glasses.
“No...but--”
“Lance then that’s the equivalent to falling in love with a youtuber, in other words it’s pretty sketchy.”
“How many followers?” Pidge asked, her voice was a bit hopeful.
“Something over a million. But guys!” Pidge and Hunk nearly spit out their popcorn.
“Lance forget about it, admire from afar.” Hunk advised replacing his nearly lost popcorn with a handful more.
“But...” Pidge and Hunk didn’t interrupt wanting to hear him out. “He’s really attractive...” Lance didn’t pick up on what he had just revealed but Pidge and Hunk shared eye contact.
“Lance...as much as we want to support the dawning of a new part of your sexuality...”
“It’s hopeless.” Hunk finished for pidge. Lance slumped, his little bit of hope nearly completely crushed.
“Thanks for the support guys.” He mumbled taking his phone out and putting it next to him.
“Just think best case scenario, it’s a long distance relationship. Worst case, doesn’t reply back. Just admire the pictures and wish you could meet him.” Pidge slipped off of the bed and put the extra blanket on his shoulders. She sat next to him nudging his side. “It’ll get better don’t worry, don’t rely on Instagram relationships for happiness. That’s what you have us for, and I guess some of your Twitter mutuals.” She patted his back as she comforted him. Hunk came down to the floor with them and put the popcorn bag in front of Lance.
“At least we have popcorn...” He said smiling sympathetically. Lance took a breath and looked between his two friends. He offered a small smile and reached into the popcorn bag.
“Friends and popcorn. What more could you need?” His voice trailed off but he tried forcing happiness into his voice. His friends hugged either side of him and Pidge turned the TV up again.