HEY this has been up for a while now on AO3, so my apologies. The next chapter should be posted as soon as I finish one shipping event (if my writing muse shows its face again)

Enjoy!

"You're really taking this Muay Thai thing seriously, aren't you?"

Shiro doesn't need to look at Matt to know that his brow is furrowed and his lips are quirked in his default expression of amusement, but he does so anyway. Matt sits on the driver's seat, hands curled around the steering wheel, tapping his fingers to the sound of a song picked by Pidge. She's on the backseat, playing a game on her 3DS, buttons clicking wildly. Shiro knows that, if he looks back, her eyebrows are knitted and her tongue is poking out in concentration.

Of course he's going to take it seriously, especially when the instructor - Keith, his mind supplies in a choir of angelic voices - seems to have taken a liking to him. Keith would not have mentioned the times he's the one teaching the class if he didn't want to see Shiro there, and while he thinks Lance is a capable instructor just as Keith, Shiro enjoys seeing him demonstrating the moves with his lean, long legs. And the compliments coming from Keith's mouth sound sweeter to his ears, too.

He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly, eyes back on the road. "Sure."

Matt snorts, but doesn't say anything else. "Like you didn't see that coming." Pidge says from behind Shiro's seat, the portable video game playing a muted depressing tune that signals a game over. "You know Shiro has a weakness for pretty boys."

"I do not-" He twists around to fix her with a playful glare - "Have a weakness for pretty boys."

The siblings snort in perfect unison; Shiro's cheeks burn in response. "I hate to break it to you, Shiro, but all your exes were pretty boys."

"Like they came straight out of a boy band photoshoot." Pidge nods, arms crossed. "If I did a full face makeup, I wouldn't look as good as them. Ever."

Shiro reaches out to poke her in the knee. "Stop being silly."

Pidge swats his hand away lightly and he recoils his arm with a faux indignant huff, settling back on his seat properly as Matt steers them to Shiro's favorite sports store in the city. The ride takes significantly less time than usual due to the hour of the day, and the Holts siblings keep on listing his past crushes to prove their point, even after they park the car by the front doors in the nearly empty parking lot.

"And there was that Patrick guy from the coffee shop. You know, the one that wore square shaped glasses for aesthetics and vests all the time?" The automatic doors slide open to let them into the shop. Pidge goes on. "You went there every day and ordered the same thing hoping he would recognize you as a regular, but he never did. And the coffee was terrible."

"Save him from reliving his sorry excuse of a love life, Pidge." Her brother cuts in, giving him a pitying pat on the back. "At least, Keith knows his name now."

Shiro shakes his hand off, but smirks at his friends. Their laughter dies and so does the topic, and they weave through aisles and shelves looking for boxing equipments. Pidge goes to another section to look for more gym clothes, seeing as she's going there regularly and only owns three shirts and two pairs of leggings.

They find the martial arts section and its numerous options of boxing gloves at his disposal to pick. Matt picks a package from the shelf and reads the instructions on the label so they can figure out Shiro's size. Shiro stops by his left side, glances up at his friend's face and quickly focuses his gaze on the tiny words.

The bruise on Matt's left cheekbone has gotten better over the course of the last few days, but it's still purple with spots of green slowly blooming around the edges, although it isn't as swollen anymore. Pidge did a wonderful job to hide most of it with more concealers than they thought she owned, so much so that Matt was complaining about how odd it felt on his face, but it seems the harsh artificial lights of the shop erase all of her work - or Shiro has already memorized it well. Shiro can see well the outline of the bruise beneath the layers of makeup. He apologizes to Matt on a daily basis.

Shiro hasn't returned to the gym since, and it isn't because he thinks someone will bring up the miscalculated kick. If anything, Matt's bruise is a physical reminder that that night truly happened, although he has nothing else to use as confirmation that Keith implied what Shiro thinks he did. That could be an hallucination created by his exhausted mind, but he's sure it could never recreate that perfect shade of blue that makes up Keith's eyes even in his wildest dreams.

When he returned to the car, Matt took a look at the black and white flyer and flipped as if Keith had given Shiro something invaluable and precious. He had twisted the paper around searching for a phone number, but found nothing. Shiro hid well his slight disappointment that he wasn't given a means to contact him, but he would have plenty of time to give the instructor his phone - if only work at the Garrison would let him go home before it was ungodly late.

Matt tosses the gloves back on the shelf - and by that Shiro means put it back with slightly less care than usual. "How much does a man like you that's pure muscle mass even weight? Don't they have gloves that aren't in this sealed plastic cases?" He squints at the various gloves on display. "Or we can try to find someone to help. Surely someone that works here knows how this works."

"Pidge has her own pair, doesn't she?" Shiro watches as his friend stalks down the aisle hoping to find some case-less gloves. "Maybe she can help."

"That," Matt turns around with a finger pointed at him, "is the smartest thing you've said all day, Shiro."

Shiro rolls his eyes goodnaturedly. "Gee, thanks."

They head to the women's clothes section, but Pidge is nowhere to be seen. Matt reasons that she's still in the shop somewhere, or else she would have contacted them in some form to let them know she went to another place. That, and the fact that, despite going to a gym now, Pidge still isn't a fan of going places on foot, especially when it's warm out. The problem now is that the store is quite large and while they have plenty of time to pick a pair of gloves for Shiro, Matt would rather not spend most of his afternoon trying to find his little sister as if they were kids again and she wandered away from their parents' shopping cart.

Matt takes the lead and Shiro silently follows glancing around as his friend presses his phone to his ears and waits for her to answer the call. When he curses silently and pockets the device, Shiro figures she must have forgotten to unsilence her phone - again. They eventually spot her talking to someone hidden behind a column across the store, past the men's clothes section and the swimming goggles, by the racks of dumbbells on the far wall.

His friend may be shorter, but he knows how to power walk efficiently, and Shiro is moving quickly to keep up with him, sidestepping the items on display and evading elbows that could hit him in the ribs. He trips on thin air, though, when he catches sight of who Pidge is talking to.

Lance and Keith.

Matt whirls around in time to see Shiro regain his balance, cheeks flushed pink. They spy the trio, but they haven't noticed his slip up, so Shiro brushes imaginary lint from his bare forearms and summons his inner runway model, strutting almost too casually towards them. Somehow Matt manages to keep a straight face, but they both know he's going to laugh for fifteen minutes straight once they make it to the car.

Pidge spots them approaching from her peripheral vision and turns to them with a dangerous glint in her eyes, zeroed in Shiro. "Look who I found."

He follows the wave of her hand with his eyes and trails his gaze up Keith's chest until their eyes meet. He smiles pleasantly at the instructor and then looks at Lance, flashes him a brilliant, but friendly grin. "Hey. It's been some time."

"Pfft, yeah, it has." Lance says, reaching out to greet both men with handshakes. "We thought you had quit. Where have you been?"

"Work has been hectic." Shiro offers Keith his hand, and he takes it. The grip is soft, yet firm enough that Shiro will imagine the pressure for the rest of the day, hands warm and roughened from the training. Their fingers drag along their skin as they pull away. Matt steps forward to greet Keith too.

"Oh yeah? Where do you work?"

"Matt and I work at the Galaxy Garrison. Pidge has a spot secured for her once she graduates."

"All those sleepless nights studying paid off," she says with a self-satisfied grin and a shrug of her shoulders. Pidge did everything in her power to keep her grades high enough so she could be offered a spot within the Garrison. Another Holt to the group.

Lance lets out an impressive whistle and nudges Keith with his elbow. "We're talking to geniuses, man."

Pidge, as usual, jumps at the opportunity to learn more about Shiro's crushes whenever she's around. It's a good way to gather information without making him seem desperate. "Do you have any majors?"

"Keith here has a Physics degree." Lance pats his friend on the back heartily. "I have an Engineering one."

She turns her inquisitive eyes to Keith. "Physics? Why don't you work in the area?"

Keith's only response is to shrug halfheartedly and change the topic of conversation. "Why'd you come to the store for?"

It's the first time he speaks since the conversation began and Shiro had forgotten how nice his voice is to his ears. Matt slaps him on the shoulder to wake him up from his reverie as per customary, used to Shiro's tendency of daydreaming in the most inopportune of times. "We're here to get him a pair of boxing gloves, but we can't figure out his size. Care to help him?"

The question is obviously directed at Keith. Lance spares a glance between them as his eyebrows rise high on his forehead. He looks at Pidge and she nods, confirming the brief suspicions that crossed his mind. Holy shit. Shiro is so going to strangle Matt when they get to the car.

Lance coughs into his fist. "Um, yeah, go help him, Keith. Don't worry, Matt and Katie can help me carry the dumbbells to the cashier once I pick them."

Matt's expectant face falls and gives way to a half surprised, half pained look. Pidge nearly doubles over laughing and reaches out with two fingers to snap her brother's mouth shut. Shiro thinks Matt kinda deserves it for being such a bad wingman; it's no wonder he goes to Pidge for relationship advice.

Keith huffs in amusement and cocks his head towards the martial arts section. "Sure."

Shiro walks two steps behind him, turns around to look at his friends and immediately regrets it. Pidge is giving him thumbs up, Matt is making kissy faces, and Lance looks like he's on the brink of exploding if he keeps his laughter inside for much longer. Matt's blunt way of forcing Keith to spend time with Shiro must be what makes Lance so red in the face with lips tightly pressed together, and it makes Shiro feel all the more embarrassed about it.

He looks at Keith's back one last time - maybe oggles his ass for a second or two - and quickly catches up with him. Keith doesn't say anything as they walk the short distance to the rows and rows of boxing gloves, and while Shiro would love to hear more of his voice, he's happy with just being in his presence for now.

He gets to listen to their friends laughing loudly behind their backs, though, and Keith groans. "I have a feeling I shouldn't have left Lance alone with your friends."

Shiro blinks and chuckles as they come to a stop before the boxing gloves again. "In hindsight, yeah, we probably shouldn't."

Keith huffs, but he's got a slight smirk on his face and Shiro's heart trips on itself. When he lifts his hand silently, palm turned up, Shiro looks at it questioningly and then at him again. "Give me your hand." Keith flexes his fingers for added emphasis. "I'm going to use my own as base."

Some part of his soul dies and ascends to heaven, Shiro is sure of it, and when his hand touches Keith's, he listens to the same choir of angels that have been living inside his head ever since he first laid eyes on the instructor. Keith is very professional about it, turning Shiro's hand over with strong, steady fingers and pressing their palms together to compare the size of their hands.

"Matt couldn't figure out your size?" Keith drops his hand and gives him a meaningful look. "I'd say it's big."

Keith turns away to the boxing gloves, and Shiro manages to catch just a glimpse of the smirk that plays on his lips. Shiro's cheeks are painted pink, yet his mouth curls into a smirk as well, one that's more visible than Keith's subtle one. The instructor tosses him a pair of black gloves that Shiro catches without breaking eye contact, Keith observing him from over his shoulders with a glint in his gorgeous eyes that stir something deep within Shiro's chest - and probably elsewhere too.

"These are one size bigger than mine, they should work." Further down the aisle, Keith finds a pair of red hand wrappings and tosses them towards Shiro. "Take one of these. They're good for training too."

Shiro tucks the gloves beneath his arm and turns the wrappings around in his hands. "Do you do this every time you have to help a student pick their gloves?"

"I don't actually go out of my way to help every student that I run into in sports stores, but," Keith turns around fully then, gaze trailing appreciatively over Shiro's frame. "I can make an exception."

Something in his stomach twists, his chest flutters, and Shiro can only do so much to not shiver before his instructor. Sadly, his brain doesn't supply him with something witty or flirty to say, and he flushes darkly when Keith chuckles softly behind a fist. But his ears are pink, too, so Shiro doesn't mind much the heat concentrated on his own cheeks.

He looks down at his supplies instead. "What colors are yours?"

Keith slips his hands into the pockets of his pants and quirks an eyebrow. "My gloves are red. The bandages are black."

"So we're matching somehow? Nice."

It seems Keith hadn't realized that. By the time it sinks in, the red in his ears has spread to his face. It's a small victory for Shiro, as well as a delightful sight. Keith grumbles something unintelligible and shoves him playfully when he walks past, and Shiro follows him again leisurely, allowing himself to stare at his ass again for a couple of seconds.

They come across Matt and Pidge, still waiting in the same spot as they were before. Upon being informed that Lance is waiting in the parking lot, Keith waves them goodbye, and Shiro knows he doesn't imagine the way his - beautiful, gorgeous, stunning - blue eyes linger on him for a beat longer. They remain quiet, watching him until he disappears outside without looking back, and once Shiro looks at his friends, expecting to be subjected to their teasing, he's surprised when all he sees is Matt sagging sullenly against a pillar and Pidge snickering to herself.

"Lance made me carry all the dumbbells by myself." Matt puts as much suffering in his voice as he can. When he tries to lift his arms and gives up with a wince, Pidge throws her head back and laughs loudly. He groans pitifully. "I refuse to ever see him again."

Shiro would, though, if it meant Keith would be with him, but he doesn't mention that and settles for patting his arm gently. "I'll drive us back."