Just Your Average College Life

Chapter 10

Tuesday, 29th October, 7pm:

Shiro waited outside the restaurant patiently, Lance had mentioned he might be a little late so he wasn't too worried about being the first one there. And according to Keith, Lance had also been tardy to their date which made Shiro assume punctuality just wasn't one of Lance's traits. Keith had actually told Shiro a lot about his date with Lance, though much of it was drowned out by the stress the older man was experiencing from his ruthless studying, but one thing Shiro had paid attention to was the fact that Lance had been very respectful of Keith's boundaries. This was obviously great as it meant Keith wasn't too uncomfortable, and Shiro cared a lot about his boyfriend’s comfort, but Shiro also hoped that Lance would sense he had fewer boundaries than Keith had…

“Okay, I'm late, sorry! But I have a good excuse!” said Lance as he rushed to the front entrance of Balmerra Dining, shivering in his much too thin jacket and rubbing his hands together to preserve some warmth.

“Your freezing! I don't care about your excuse, I just care about your temperature- which is much too low. Let's go inside, okay?” Shiro was bumbling through his words as he tried to warm up the younger man, even forcing his coat onto Lance and wrapping his arm around him as they walked into the restaurant.

“Yeah… It's just as well you don't want to hear my excuse since it's less of an excuse and more of a reason for me not to be late. When I told my roommate, Hunk, about the restaurant I'd be going to he reminded me it was my other friend, Shay’s, parents’ restaurant and offered to drive me on his way to meet Shay (he's spending the night with her, they're so cute together, seriously), then we talked about that coincidence for 20 minutes before he gave me a lift.” Explained Lance, apparently unfazed by how cold he had been minutes earlier and eagerly snuggling up to Shiro’s side.

They made their way to a table, like the others in the restaurant it had a bowl of pretty crystals for the centerpiece (their bowl had blue, white and black crystals which seemed fitting despite Shiro’s being positively sick of monotones at this point) but their table was the most romantic seat in the place, a two person table right under the beautiful chandelier and close enough to the pianist to hear their quiet melody but far enough away so it wouldn't drown out their conversation. Shiro had to believe that, after realising his friend’s family owned Balmerra Dining, Lance had called in a favour to get them the best table.

“So, I heard your date with Keith went well.” mentioned Shiro once the pair had sat down and ordered. It was Shiro’s treat and Lance had been surprisingly careful about the price of his roast salmon, not wanting Shiro to pay too much which was sweet but unnecessary; Shiro was the only child of a wealthy Japanese family and had plenty of money.

“Yeah, he's cute and fun… Even if his choice of ‘movie’ was poor…” Lance said sincerely, getting a daydreamy look to his eye when talking about Keith, which transferred over to Shiro when he looked back up at him. The deep eye contact, however, only lasted a few seconds before Lance turned and… Blushed? “But you know, you're pretty fun too.”

“How could you know that? We've spent hardly any time together, and for most of that you were unconscious” teased Shiro lightheartedly, smiling at the deeper blush he managed to cause in Lance, the redness now at the tips of his ears.

“I hope you realise it was much easier to get through a date with Keith then it is with you, you're very…” Lance tried to tease Shiro back but was apparently at a loss for words when he saw Shiro’s false innocent smile, which basically screamed ‘aww, did I make you blush? Sorry, I was just trying to be a sweet soulmate’.

At that point their food arrived and Lance lost his chance at a witty response and seemingly decided that cute banter was not how he would be flirting with Shiro, though Shiro didn't doubt it had worked perfectly with Keith. They made idle chatter instead of overly flirtatious remarks and Shiro learned that Lance was from a Cuban family and was the youngest of 5 of his own siblings and had three older step brothers. His parents got divorced shortly after he was born and he spent most of his time with his mum (he avoided the topic of his biological father like the plague so Shiro decided not to ask). Lance also mentioned he took classes in both drama and astrophysics which seemed like a weird mix but worked for him. Shiro told Lance about his rich heritage, how his parents moved to America when he was only two but he still knew the languages of both of his homes (apparently Lance himself was multilingual which was extremely interesting). Shiro also said he had had classes in both psychology and medicine which didn't seem to surprise Lance in the slightest, perhaps he had already heard about it from Matt or maybe Shiro simply had that look about him? Once the pair had finished talking about themselves, and Shiro was out of his awestruck state from how bubbly and entertaining Lance was, they just started chatting about what was going on at the moment.