we just fall where our hearts go

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Keith is perched on the porch railings when Sven’s jeep pulls up on their driveway. He didn’t have to call out to his mother because Krolia walks out the door seconds later and hums in appreciation as soon as she sees the vehicle. Sven knows how to impress, Keith gives him that.

They watch as the cousins hop off the jeep and start walking up to the front door.

“They’re cousins, you say? Which one’s yours, the nerd or the jock?” Krolia asks and ignores how Keith almost falls off the railings, intent on studying the two boys. “Oh wait, Romelle’s dating the quarterback, so-”

“No one’s mine, mom.” Keith cuts her off. “I’m chaperoning and Shiro’s driving – we’re both third-wheeling here.”

Krolia considers it. “Two third-wheels?”

“Two third-wheels.” Keith confirms. “Thanks to you.”

Krolia seems to accept it, but gets a final word in before their guests come within earshot. “No one says chaperoning can’t be fun, though. Specially if the driver is cute.”

Keith rolls his eyes but shuts up because Shiro just nudged Sven forward, prompting their school’s star quarterback to cough and splutter out a greeting to a very smug and amused looking Krolia.

Keith think it’s overkill that his mom chose to welcome them in her fitted tank top (read: the one that lets everyone know that she lifts ) with her old army jacket tied around her waist, but it’s always fun to watch Krolia terrify people, so he just watches the show.

He glances at Shiro, who looks back at him and mouths ‘badass’ , and Keith leans forward on his propped up knee to hide his grin behind it.

Keith and Romelle had both complained when Krolia demanded that Keith should go chaperone, but their mother had been adamant. Romelle called Sven to ask if it’s okay, and Sven only sheepishly admitted that he was just about to call her too, because apparently he was having Shiro tag along on his side as well.

‘I don’t trust him to drive while Romelle is in the car.’ Shiro had explained to Keith through text later that night when Keith asked about it. ‘That would be life-threatening and very embarrassing.’

Keith only replied, ‘K. I call shotgun.’

Now, he only half-listens to whatever sermon Krolia has chosen to subject Sven and Shiro through, probably about where they were planning to take her children, the 10 PM curfew, and driving safely.

Romelle finally comes out of the house, dressed up and beaming, probably with the sole purpose of making Sven choke on air.

Which he did. Shiro slaps his cousin’s back and hisses something like ‘Get it together, man.’

“Uh…” Sven coughs, standing straight, smiling shakily. The best he can manage is, “Hi.”

“Hi.” Romelle greets back. Keith can see that she’s wringing her fingers behind her.

They just stand there, staring and smiling and God , Keith thinks, they’ll be stuck here all day if no one does something .

It’s Krolia who takes charge, clearing her throat and telling the teens that they’re wasting daylight and they should probably get going.

“Of course! It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.” Sven nods at Krolia again, perfectly polite, a picture of a gentleman. He still looks nervous, but he was clearly coming to grips with himself.

Keith hops off from his perch and kisses his mother’s cheek after Romelle does. Romelle has shifted to bouncy and excited when she takes in how nervous Sven is, and takes the initiative of taking his arm and pulling him towards the jeep, already talking a mile a minute. Shiro troops dutifully after them, Keith bringing up the rear.

“Romelle,” Krolia calls. “Take care, sweetheart.”

“Yes, mom!” Romelle answers, bright and cheery.

“Keith, look after your sister.”

Keith says nothing but gives his mother a salute.

“Sven, Shiro?”

The cousins turn to her, attentive.

“Both my children have a black belt in Taekwondo, I just thought you should know.”

The boys looked terrified, but manage to nod shakily. “Y-Yes ma’am…”

Krolia grins, watching Sven help Romelle climb inside the vehicle. “Enjoy, kids! I’ll be here, taking stock of my knife collection.”

Sven misses his step and Romelle had to pull him up, laughing heartily.

Keith makes himself comfortable in the passenger seat, as Shiro starts up the jeep.

“Does your mom really have a knife collection?” Shiro asks.

Keith snorts. “No.”

“No?”

“It’s more like a knife and sword collection.”

They hear Sven mumble something in Norwegian. It might have been a prayer.

It’s followed closely by Romelle giggling. “Oh, no, don’t worry! She really liked you! I can tell!”

Keith and Shiro glance at the rearview mirror to see their companions already snuggled comfortably on the backseat.

This is gonna be an interesting day.

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It turns out that Sven’s entire date plan is an amusement park date.

Of course, Keith thinks, of course the guy would take his sister, the transfer student made of sunshine, glitter and rainbows, into the local amusement park that she’s been wanting to go to for a while now. Sven has done his research and Keith respects that.

“It’s going… well.” he hears Shiro say beside him as they trailed after the other two.

“It’s not as bad as you thought, huh.” Keith says, watching Romelle and Sven walking ahead of them, both chattering excitedly, smiles bright, fingers linked.

“I might have underestimated my cousin.” Shiro admits. “I expected him to be more of a mess.”

“He bounced back, fast.”

“Romelle helps. Like… a lot.”

“Yeah, she does that.”

It had only taken the entire jeep ride for Sven and Romelle to be perfectly comfortable with each other. Maybe it’s because they’ve already exchanged a ton of cheesy love notes before really hanging out, but Sven’s nervous energy had been quickly balanced out by Romelle’s easy curiosity and his eagerness to answer her questions. By the time they reached the park, the two were already attached at the hip, playing 21 Questions.

It turns out, chaperoning an extremely cheesy date isn’t really as awkward as he had thought it would be, specially when he has someone he can exchange exasperated looks with. Romelle and Sven are in their own little lovestruck bubble, and Keith and Shiro only have to keep a few steps behind them.

After the first hour of walking around and playing booth games, Keith has stopped worrying about where Sven put his hands, because they were always on Romelle’s hand, or shoulder, or the small of her back. He carries her shiny sea-shell backpack without complaint, and fights tooth and nail on the shooting booth to get Romelle a unicorn plushie.

He manages to get only the smallest one, and Romelle looks at him like he hung the moon.

They’re okay , Keith concludes. He takes one picture and sends it to his mother. She replies with a thumbs up and sparkle emoji.

But Keith is still a big brother (of two months, but eh, details ), so he pockets his phone, cracks his knuckles, steps forward, and passes some coins to the booth. He makes sure to smirk smugly at Sven’s direction as he wins a giant stuffed bunny.

“Show-off.” Romelle pouts, hugging her tiny unicorn to her chest.

“Aw, did you want the big bunny?” Keith asks, teasing.

“No. Keep your petty show-off bunny!” Romelle turns around and grabs Sven’s arm to drag him to the next game.

While Romelle was busy finding their next destination, Sven whips his head around, points at the bunny, then at himself and mouths ‘Please teach me!’ and… okay , Keith decides he likes the guy, after all.

He hears Shiro laugh beside him, phone raised because he had been capturing it all on video all this time.

“Hey, Shiro.” Keith calls, and Shiro pauses the video to look at him. “Would you like a giant bunny?”

Shiro blinks, looks at the toy and tries not to gape. He splutters out a couple of sentence before deciding he should shut up and reorganize his thoughts first. Finally, blush high on his cheeks, he nods. “Yes, I would like a giant bunny, Keith. I don’t know what I’d do with it, but I can figure that out later.”

Keith grins and hands him the stuffed bunny, which Shiro accepted with open arms and hugged like it was the most precious thing in the world. Keith shakes his head as he starts walking after Sven and Romelle again. “Don’t name it after me, that’s weird.”

“Okay.” Shiro says, then lifts the toy to look straight into the bunny’s button eyes. “You’re now… Keef.”

Keith almost trips, turning to look at him disbelievingly. “Dude!”

“What? I didn’t name it after you.” Shiro says defensively.

Keith rolls his eyes and gives up. “You’re a dork.”

Shiro just hugs the bunny tighter.

Keith takes out his phone, snaps a photo and sends it to his mom along with a message: ‘I got the bigger one tho’ . Krolia replies with three lines’ worth of thumbs up and fire emojis.

Then they hear Romelle calling them and shouting about the rides. They caught ‘teacup’ and ‘carousel’ and ‘rollercoaster’.

“Oh, shit. She’s starting.” Keith sighs.

Shiro shifts nervously behind him. “Starting what?”

“Uh…” Keith runs a hand through his hair and considers his words carefully. “She… really likes… rides.”

Shiro freezes. “How much… does she like them?”

“She’s probably gonna make your cousin ride the rollercoaster three times.”

They both look at the happy couple. Romelle is bouncing on her feet as she says something to Sven, their hands clasped between them. Sven looks smitten .

Keith and Shiro pray for his soul.

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The date goes swimmingly. It’s a testament to Sven’s resilience that he survives every ride Romelle had dragged him through. The Kogane siblings were back home by 9:30 PM, plenty of time for Sven to walk Romelle to the door and say ‘Good Evening and Thank You For Allowing Me to Date Your Perfect Daughter’ to Krolia like a proper gentleman. Romelle bids her date goodbye with a kiss to his cheek. The cousins drive off reassured that they were in Krolia’s good graces and wouldn’t have to face her knife and sword collection anytime soon.

Shiro is certain that this is all he’ll hear about from Sven for the rest of the weekend and the entire Monday morning until Sven gets swept away by his darling girlfriend again. Shiro hopes the two will start hanging out with each other now, because really, he can only take so much.

The drive back to the Holgerssons’ was quiet, with Shiro driving dutifully and Sven sprawled ungracefully in the backseat, looking out the window with a dreamy look on his face.

Then Sven says, “Oh, no.”

Shiro snaps to attention. “What?”

“Keith forgot his bunny!” Sven says, leaning over to take a closer look at the bunny stuffed toy on the passenger seat. It had its seat belt buckled and everything.

Shiro chuckles. “No, he didn’t. He said I can have it.”

“Ah. That’s nice.” Sven calms down quickly, then goes back to his backseat sprawl. “Keith is really nice. I thought he’d be more… scary, you know.”

Shiro thinks about it. “He can be a bit intimidating, I guess.”

“Yes, but when he’s not, he’s really nice. And fun.”

“He is.” Shiro says. “He’s great company.”

The drive becomes quiet for several blissful moments.

Then Sven abruptly sits up, looking like he just has an epiphany. “Takashi.”

“Hm?”

“You did so much for me. For me and Romelle.”

“Uh… yeah, sure? Don’t mention it?”

“If you need someone to put love notes in Keith’s locker, I-”

“No.”

And that was that.

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