My Hotheaded Paladin (Keith x Reader)

III

III

(Y/n) Shirogane

Ever since Keith and Takashi had that moment outside of the principal's office, Keith has finally started to warm up to me and my brother. He converses more with us, appears much more approachable, and even seems to cherish the moments that he spends with the both of us.

But most importantly, now he smiles, quite often too. And lately, I've noticed that every time he does smile, while we're in class or studying or just spending time together, I feel my chest slightly warm-up and my heart skips a beat. For a while, I tried to play it off and ignore it, because Keith was my closest friend and I didn't want any feelings to ruin that, but it's been stronger lately, to the point where I can't ignore it, and that's when I finally had to admit it to myself: I have romantic feelings for Keith.

I like him.

I try to reassure myself that my feelings wouldn't be able to ruin my friendship with Keith because even if he doesn't like me back, he would never stop being my friend. Sometimes I even think about how Takashi and Adam were friends at first but soon got into a romantic relationship because they had mutual feelings for one another.

But that's the thing, the feelings were mutual. I think my feelings are one-sided. So I just... push them away and act like they're not there. Because I don't want to lose Keith in any way possible, even if that means that we have to remain friends.

On the brighter side of things, two years at the Galaxy Garrison have passed like nothing. Keith and I have gotten our official pilot training licenses, meaning that we are allowed to train in our jets without the supervision of a commander or junior officer as long as we have our crew members with us.

As fighter pilots and Astro Explorers in-training, Keith and I each get a crew of one engineer and one communications officer. My crew is Mauro Elwes, my engineer, and Olympia Sanford, my communications officer. Keith's crew is Kiki Purcell, his engineer, and Isidro Burnham, his communications officer.

We often joke with each other that one of us should have been an engineer or communications officer so that we could be a part of the same crew, but the both of us are too stubborn to turn down being a pilot.

Keith has even been deemed the best pilot of our graduating class so far, making Takashi really proud and getting me slightly irked. He often teases me about being the best fighter pilot of our class, but I also tease him about being the leader of drills and training despite not being the best; it gets him a bit snappy, but we both know that it's all in good fun.

And that's all I want, to have fun with Keith and see him happy while we spend time together at the Galaxy Garrison as classmates and as friends.

⋆⋆⇝☼⇜⋆⋆

Keith and I had just gotten finished with our school day and are now sitting in Takashi and Adam's shared dorm room. Shiro and Adam are gone on some sort of junior officer meeting, so Keith and I were studying alone as we sat on Shiro's couch, each with a large textbook in our hand. But as I finished up my work and even stole a couple of glances at Keith's textbook, I began to think about mine and Keith's relationship over the past couple of years and suddenly realized something.

He's never talked much about his family. I remember James teasing him about his parents before they got into a fight, and James even mentioned something about Keith living in a home with other people back when we first met. But I never figured out what he meant by that–

"Hey, are you okay?" Keith suddenly asked me. "You've just been spacing out, is something wrong?"

"Hm? N-No..." I stuttered before sighing. "Actually, I have a question for you, Keith. And... it's kind of personal."