The first time he saw it, he thought he would vomit out his heart. Everyone was so happy, it was a celebration, no one saw anything wrong with this situation.
He'd seen a lot of things that scared him in his life. But he'd never seen Shiro look at someone like that.
It was like waking up from surgery with a worse murmur than before and never recovering to where you used to be.
And maybe you were listening to the doctors at first, and you didn't understand anything they were saying but it terrified you, long words and urgent voices were never a good thing, but when Shiro told you it would be all right it was so easy to believe him.
And then amid all the bafflement and apologies and "it's not like any heart we've ever seen," they'd ask to study you a bit closer, and you could feel yourself getting sick at the thought, but you didn't have to say anything, because right there was Shiro saying "You've messed with him enough" and they kept pressing until he said "I'm not letting him flatline again" and that was that.
And maybe you owed him your life, but that was nothing, you would have given him so much more if you could.
Not like any of that had actually HAPPENED to him, of course. Not like he still woke up from nightmares checking that his heart was still in his chest. But it was exactly like that, except this time nothing Shiro could say would make it better.
Keith watched Shiro kiss the Holt boy and knew he was fundamentally unlovable. He swore he could feel the stitches coming out of his heart, twang, twang.
And there was everyone else, gathered around Shiro and Pidge's brother, "wow I can't believe you guys were together this whole time," wow indeed, why the fuck hadn't Shiro said anything, why was Keith that unimportant to him?
He'd have died to be kissed like that. He'd died every day for years.
But a lifetime of dying wasn't enough, he burned every time Shiro and the Holt boy walked past him, why did they have to be together all the time, couldn't Matt fuck off for just ten minutes? He'd never wanted to spit in someone's face so badly.
They all took to the Holt boy so quickly. Keith felt fucking sick. Maybe it was just that little bit hard to be civil with someone like that.