Set somewhat before After.

It is a well-known fact that patience yields focus.

It does not, however, yield ink. Or paper. Or a calligraphy brush. Or any sort of brush at all for that matter. And if you don't have the tools you generally use to coax (or sometimes force) yourself into a state of patience, how are you ever supposed to get focused?!

Keith sighs. Most of the time, being in space and a part of Voltron is actually pretty great for him. He misses being able to radio his eternal wanderer of a father whenever he has the chance or feels like it, but as to everything else…? He has access to ships and vehicles he could only have dreamt of back on Earth, not so mention Red, so that's his twin loves of flying and going fast covered, the Castle has plenty of good weapons and he'd had his heirloom dagger with him, so while he sort of misses the few blades he's managed to collect over the years, that's sword and knife fighting covered, and he's actively encouraged to train as much as he likes… So, aside from his dad, there isn't much he'd had on Earth that he doesn't have here, and the two of them had gotten used to being separated more often than not since he'd joined the Garrison to become a pilot. Everything he needs is here.

Except his calligraphy set. Quiznak, it's not even a Korean calligraphy set, it's Japanese, for the same reason he knows kanji, hiragana, and katakana as opposed to Hangul and Hanja. Because he'd had that stupid obsession with samurai as a kid.

…okay, it wasn't stupid, it was cool, he still thinks samurai are cool, he's just way more low-key about it now. It's not like he ignored the Korean portion of his heritage or anything, he just- he saw cartoons and books about samurai sometimes, when he was young, and the idea of the powerful, lone warrior had set his mind on fire like dinosaurs or pirates did for other kids, and he'd been young enough to not quite understand the difference between having a Japanese heritage versus a Korean one, especially when his Dad considered the really important part of their heritage to be things like Tex-Mex. He'd just seen something cool he'd wanted to know more about.

And, honestly, it had probably been a godsend for his dad, the day Keith had learned that samurai held arts like calligraphy and such in as much esteem as the arts of war, because getting Keith to sit still for school lessons had been a battle in and of itself up until that point.

He's pretty sure most kids didn't get coaxed into learning percentages so that they could calculate numbers of enemy forces or their odds in battle, and that their art lessons involved more paintings and statues and fewer war masks from various Asian cultures, crafted from metal and designed to be worn in battle to strike fear into the hearts of enemies, but that's their loss. (Especially once he starts talking with Lance more and finds out that, not only are masks in general one of Lance's interests, but that he's more than keen to sit and talk for hours about how war masks differed from culture to culture, and all the important little details that make them really interesting. It's nice not to be so at odds with a member of the team he's on anymore. (It's nice to be a member of a team.))

The utter infatuation has faded slightly as he's grown older and found other interests, but it never entirely went away – he wouldn't have wanted it to if it could. It was awesome enough at the time that his dad had used his interests to help him start enjoying school – it's even more amazing in retrospect, that he was willing to put in all that extra effort to learn about a subject he knew nothing about on top of all the required subjects to help his son flourish. (Some people say Wanderers make bad parents. Keith thinks some people need to have their heads examined.)

And, even beyond all that, it's because of his samurai infatuation that Keith met Shiro, at a cultural festival when he was still a kid and Shiro was just barely a teenager. And maybe people look at him a little weird for being so into the 'wrong' Asian culture (like he has to be primarily interested in Korea just because he has ancestors there), but that's their own small-minded problem, because how can Keith ever regret an interest that led him to the best and closest friend he's ever had?

In any case, Keith's poked through the piles of stuff Lance, Hunk, and Pidge have unearthed in their explorations of the Castle, but nothing remotely like what he's looking for has turned up yet. The closest he's come is a bottle of paint that's about the same consistency as ink, but, well… call him pedantic, but Keith really kind of prefers using an ink stone these days. Taking the time to grind and mix the ink is part of the process, part of the art, and it's just not the same using ink from a bottle. When your mind is always moving, sometimes it needs a little help figuring out how to slow down.

But, other than the paint, the closest they've come to writing implements of any kind are some items similar to markers (which, to be fair, Lance was delighted with), and Keith is just… yeah. He's about at the point where he's going to have to break down and ask for help on this one, see if Pidge and Hunk can't get the Castle to synthesize some supplies the way they've gotten it to synthesize clothes and blankets. …and he's getting better about asking for help with stuff, with working as part of a team, but this is… different. He's usually the 'slash and stab hothead' of the team (to use Lance's term), or the ace pilot/speed demon, and he… hasn't really let on that he's got interests in art that involve him making it. And the whole "hey, turns out I'm half Galra" episode is still recent enough in his mind that he wants to wait a little bit longer before telling them.

Naturally, he should have remembered that he's literally living with a guy who has a literal Comedy mask, and that, no matter how careful their owners are, masks that ancient tend to leak.

"By the way, Keith, have you been keeping up with your calligraphy, lately?"

There is a silence that follows this, as Keith gapes at Shiro from where he's been helping sort through some of the aforementioned piles of stuff their three teammates have unearthed, and Shiro stares into space as though he's trying to figure out where the hell that question came from.

…in hindsight, it was stupid to assume he was going to get to tell everyone about this on his own terms after waiting so long, especially since they're spending more time as a group these days, and it's fitting that Keith is the red paladin, because he is very much embodying this fact at the moment, he's pretty sure he couldn't get much redder if he tried.

"Seriously?"

And great, of course it would be Pidge who gets it the first comment, Lance might tease, but Pidge is vicio-

"Dude, you've got no excuse for your terrible boy handwriting, then."

That… is not what he was expecting, and Keith peeks from between his fingers to make sure he's not being mocked. "What?"

"Your handwriting," Pidge repeats, patient and unimpressed, "Should be way better if you can do proper calligraphy. Even if you're not using the right sort of pen."

"…I don't do Western calligraphy, I do Japanese," Keith counters, "You use a brush for that, not a pen. And also, no, Shiro, I have not been keeping up with it because I didn't bring my calligraphy set to go find Blue and I haven't been able to find replacements for any of it!"

There is more silence for a moment, then Lance turns to Hunk. "Cough it up, I told you he went through an anime phase."

"Lance, he's the same age as us, everyone in our generation went through an 'anime phase' at some point!"

"Yeah, but not all of us dress like it!"

Keith feels the need to cut in at this point, "Hey, I do not-!"

"Actually you kinda do," Pidge counters before he can get any farther, and that is just-.

"Guys," Shiro's voice cuts through the escalating chaos like a knife, "Be nice."

"I didn't say it was a bad thing," Lance sulks in way of apology, "Just that he went through one."

"I didn't, actually," Keith corrects him, because might as well get it all out there before it can get any more mangled, "I just- I was really into samurai as a kid. They were cool. So my Dad used that to get me more interested in schoolwork, because classical samurai were supposed to be good at martial arts and well educated. Including knowing how to write properly." He folds his arms and glares at the rest of the group, willing anyone to comment.

"So… what you're saying is that you really have no excuse for your terrible boy handwriting?"

…when Keith comes to power, Pidge is going to be the first against the wall, assuming she doesn't usurp his power on the way there. "I was more focused on my calligraphy being good than my notes."

"So you're saying it is good?"

"It's… decent enough."

"Okay." She hops off the chair she's been perched on and heads for the doorway, gesturing at him to follow her, "Come on, I need you to tell me what to program the synthesizer for, because this I gotta see."

OoOoOoOoO

It goes… surprisingly quickly after that. Making a brush and a paper substitute aren't that hard (for Team Punk), and he's already got the paint, though Pidge admits to being stumped by the ink stone.

"Why not, just, have a regular stone in a bowl of water?" Hunk suggests as she's trying to figure out a solve when Keith explains why grinding the ink by hand is important, "If it's just about spending a certain amount of time doing the right motions before using the ink, that should be a good work-around for the moment, right?"

That… is not a solution Keith would have thought of. And it's not a bad one for the situation they're in, and in the end Keith's kneeling by a low table in one of the lounges, brush in hand for the first time in what feels like forever, and already relaxing as a result, even with his fellow paladins, Allura, and Coran watching him. He's out of practice, his vocabulary's never been huge, and he's far away from any internet source that would let him look up translations or stroke order, but there's a pair of kanji he's written so many times that they're as burned into his memory as the alphabet. Taking a breath that's far calmer than usual, he allows his focus to shrink entirely onto the page in front him, the brush in his hand, and the kanji in his head.

忍耐

Nintai.

Patience.

OoOoOoOoO

I don't actually remember where this came from, just that I tripped over the concept of Bunbu-ryodo (the balance between pen and sword) and instantly went, "Keith. That's so Keith." That this is one of the things Keith sits still for, and it helps him calm down and relax.

I rather like the idea of Keith having been excited about samurai as a kid the way many kids who grew up with Naruto got excited about ninja, regardless of where they were from in the world. Maybe he was a Rurouni Kenshin fan or something – I'm not sure, it's one I've never taken a look at, though I keep meaning to.