Lance yawned and leaned on a wooden pole near the dock, waiting for the other fishermen to finish preparing to leave. Granted, he could always go out by himself, but after what had happened with the prince, nobody was letting him out of their sight. It was annoying, but Lance knew he could have gotten a much worse punishment so he kept his mouth shut.

Right now though, all he could do was wait while Hunk, his chef buddy from the palace, rambled on about whatever was currently on his mind.

"And Lance, if you're delivering to the palace again," Hunk was saying, "Please remember to leave the fish in the palace where they won't be stolen this time, okay?"

Lance groaned. "Will you let that go already? It was one time, dude."

"Yeah, okay, but you left me panicking and distraught about what I was gonna cook for the damn prince," Hunk snapped. "I just don't want to repeat that, okay?"

"Ok, buddy. I'll deliver the fish straight to the kitchen personally, while they're still alive and flopping."

"Good."

There was a moment of silence before either one of them moved. Just as Hunk was about to say goodbye and leave, they noticed a tiny figure headed their way. Lance perked up and Hunk raised an eyebrow as Katie quickly ran across the beach until she was in front of them, panting heavily.

"Hey, Pidgeon!" Lance cooed. "Been awhile since I've seen you."

"Uhh, you okay, Katie?" Hunk asked.

"I'm fine," Katie responded, standing up to her full height (which wasn't much). "And Lance, I told you to stop calling me Pidgeon."

"But you're so small and cute like a pigeon."

Katie rolled her eyes but let it drop. "Anyway, I wanted your help with something. You're good at tracking down fish, right?"

Lance grinned. "Of course I know how to track down fish, I catch them for a living after all."

Katie smiled. "Great! So, then, by extension, if there was a fish-human hybrid out there...you know, hypothetically, you'd be able to track him down too, right?"

Now Lance just looked confused. "Uh...what?"

Hunk groaned. "Ah, Katie, not this again..."

Katie ignored him and leaned closer to Lance. "Look, the prince keeps saying that he saw a merman out there, and I just want to know if it's true."

"Prince Shiro bumped his head underwater too hard, Katie," said Hunk. "Honestly, I'm worried about him, you don't need to encourage him like this."

"Well, I believe him!" Katie snapped, then turned back to Lance. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"Pidgeon, I can assure you with all my knowledge of fishing-mermen don't exist. If they did, I'd know about it."

But Katie crossed her arms stubbornly. "Well, if you're not going to help me, would you at least teach me your apparently vast knowledge of fishing so I can look for him myself?"

Lance sighed and ran a hand through his brown hair. "Well, you won't find much, but okay..." he frowned. "Although, I'm kind of on probation for the next month after almost losing the prince underwater...tell you what, if the prince is still going on about merman after I'm free from this, then I'll take you out fishing and show you everything you want to know, okay?"

Katie smiled again. "Deal."

"Lance!" one of his fellow fisherman called out suddenly. "We're heading out, let's go!"

Lance grinned and started toward the boat filled with men, waving goodbye to his two friends. "Well, that's all the time I got today! Later, Hunk! See you soon, Pidgeon!"

"Don't call me Pidgeon!"

"Aw, but it suits you! How about Pidge? That works, right?"

Katie rolled her eyes. "Fine, Pidge works better."

"Pidge it is, then! Hasta la later friends! The sea is calling to me!"

Keith peeked out from behind a wall, checking to make sure nobody was around. He wanted to swim up to the surface to see Shiro again, but if anyone caught him, he was basically toast. Especially if "anyone" was Allura.

When Keith didn't find anyone, he grinned ready to himself and hurriedly began to swim upward, when-

"Keeeeeith! Prince Keith, where did you go?"

Keith stopped at the sound of Coran's voice, heaving a sigh. The servant in question appeared just a few feet away, swimming over to Keith as soon as he saw him.

"Prince Keith, there you are! The queen and I have been looking all over for you! You need to get ready for your royal portrait!"

Keith groaned. "Coran, can't we save this for later? I've got somewhere to be."

Coran raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And where's that?"

Keith paused, biting his lip. "Just...somewhere. I just don't want to do my portrait right now, okay?"

He was just about to turn away when he spotted Allura show up as well, swimming over gracefully as ever with an annoyed look on her face. Keith sighed.

"And just where do you think you're going, Keith?" Allura asked, stopping in front of him and crossing her arms.

"I just want to go somewhere real fast, Allura," Keith explained. "I'll be back in like an hour, and we can do the portrait then."

"Absolutely not, Keith, we're not keeping them waiting just so you can go off on another one of your scavenger hunts," Allura snapped. "Wherever you're going, it can wait until we're done."

"No, come on, I-" Keith stammered. This portrait would take hours, by the time it was done he will have missed his meeting with Shiro by a long shot...

Allura raised an eyebrow "What's the rush for, Keith? Is there someone waiting for you?"

"Um..."

"Are you seeing someone?"

Keith flushed. "N-no, it's not like that..." he's paused. "Ok, well...sort of, I just...don't want to be late..."

Allura's eyes were wide as plates now, any sign of her previous annoyance now gone. "Who? Who is it?"

Keith grumbled under his breath. "None of your business, Allura..."

"What do you mean? Of course it's my business. You're my brother, and a prince, I need to know who you're seeing."

Coran cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but your date will have to wait, Prince Keith. We can't postpone this any longer."

Allura regained her previous composure. "Coran's right. Don't worry, we can send a message to your date with an explanation if you'd like. I'm sure they'll understand."

"It's not a date," Keith grumbled. Before Allura could say more he pushed past her and headed toward the castle. Might as well get this overwith as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, Allura lagged behind with Coran, a thoughtful look on her face. "I never would have thought he'd be seeing someone, Coran," she muttered. "Is that where he's been disappearing to lately? He must be really attached to them, whoever they are."

Coran chuckled. "Yes, it's quite sweet, isn't it? And here we were worried that he'd never meet anyone at all."

"Yes, but something doesn't feel quite right," Allura frowned. "Why is he being so secretive about this?"

Coran patted her shoulder gently. "Don't worry yourself too much, milady. He's probably just shy about it. It's normal."

She hesitated, before smiling with a nod. "You're right, Coran. I need to trust him more." They finally reached the inside of the palace and Allura let the subject drop. But the uneasy feeling in her stomach was still there.

Shiro leaned against a large rock on the beach and sighed, staring over at the spot where Keith was usually waiting for him. In his hands there was a soft pink lily, one he'd picked up on his way here after days of convincing himself to give something nice to Keith. The merman was usually at their meeting spot first, and Shiro had had the whole scene planned out in his head. Keith would be waiting on the rock, Shiro would wait until he wasn't looking and then float the flower gently toward him on the water. It would have been like a cutesy romantic scene from one of the books his mother used to read him, but, alas, Keith was nowhere to be found when Shiro arrived.

He was a bit disappointed about losing this chance, but he figured it would be fine to just wait and give it to him normally. Unfortunately, however, it had been hours since their usual meeting time had passed and Shiro was starting to get anxious. Perhaps Keith had decided he didn't want to spend more time with him after all? Or maybe he'd forgotten.

Shiro frowned. No, Keith wouldn't forget about him, would he? Maybe...maybe something had happened.

He froze. What if something had happened to Keith? Maybe he was hurt. Maybe he'd been caught by something-or someone- while trying to sneak to the surface. Shiro could only imagine what would happen if the wrong set of people found out about Keith's existence.

Shiro room a deep breath. No, no, he couldn't let himself freak out over something he had no evidence for. Keith was probably just busy. The guy was a prince too, after all. If that was the case, they'd probably have to skip their usual date today-Shiro had to get back home soon anyway.

After a few more minutes of nothing, the human prince sighed and stood up to stretch his back. It was too bad. Seeing Keith had started to be the highlight of every day for him, and he'd gotten used to it. But what could he do, it wasn't like he could blame Keith for being busy, could he? He'd be back tomorrow.

A splash from the ocean stopped Shiro in his tracks just as he was leaving, and he looked up to see Keith's head emerge from the water, looking around frantically. Shiro's breath hitched when the merman's wide violet eyes locked onto him, and they both soon found themselves at the rock.

"I'm so sorry," Keith began immediately. "I didn't mean to be late-how long have you been waiting here?"

Keith's usual cool demeanor seemed to have evaporated at the thought of causing Shiro trouble, and Shiro couldn't help but smile at that. "Longer than usual," Shiro admitted softly. "But you don't have to worry about it, I figured you were just busy."

Keith ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, Allura and Coran made me stay for a stupid portrait I didn't want to do..." he huffed. "I can't believe you actually stayed here. You didn't have to do that."

"I know, but..." Shiro rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I just, I wanted to see you."

Keith blinked, a simple "oh" escaping him as he turned pink. He sat up on the rock, trying to hide a small smile behind his hand. Shiro saw it anyway. It was good to know that he could also leave Keith speechless after the merman had already done the same to him several times.

"Oh, by the way," Shiro began. He awkwardly held the flower in his hands out to Keith. "Uh, this is for you."

Shiro held his breath as Keith stared at the lily for a moment, before reaching out to take it from him.

"A flower?" Keith asked, raising an eyebrow. "What's it for?"

Shiro paused for a moment. He hadn't considered that Keith wouldn't understand the gift-he was practically from a different world, after all. But, uh...how was Shiro supposed to explain?

"Well, it's-uh, it's...a gift." He stuttered. "I thought it was nice, so, you know..."

Keith's eyes widened. "A gift? I-I didn't bring you anything..."

Shiro gave a soft chuckle. "No, it's ok. You don't need to give me anything, I just wanted to show you my appreciation."

"For what?"

"Just...you being here."

Keith was quiet, running his thumbs gently along the flower petals, before smiling softly. "Thank you."

Ah, there it was. Keith making his heart race with little effort, yet again. How he always did that to him, Shiro didn't know, but it was definitely worth waiting forever for.

"Anytime."