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Professor Garret is an over-sharer. A major over-sharer. He is one of the most popular professors on campus, and every one body knows a little bit too much about his home life.
Even though he is part of the Engineering department, he loves to cook and considered becoming a chef in his late teens. His then-boyfriend, now-husband convinced him to go into mechanical engineering and he hasn’t looked back since. He says becoming a chef was the easy option for him, he was scared to go into an environment with so many intelligent people, but his husband saw through that and supported him.
Garret has anxiety and has had it since he was a kid. He says it was really bad in high school and the start of college, but with the help of his friends, he started getting better. He still has his moments, but he is proud of how far he’s come.
Garret talks about his husband. A lot. From what everyone can gather, he is shorter than Garret, with long black hair, pale skin and purple-blue eyes. (“His eyes are his most intriguing feature! I’ve never seen anyone with that colour before, they’re deep blue, but in some lights, they look purple. He always laughs when I tell him that, but the next time you see him look closely.”)
His husband is an animal whisper, although nobody is certain if that is his actual job or not. The guy brings stray animals home all the time, nurses them back to health and then finds them good homes. They have three pets that they ‘never found a home for’ (Garret insists that his husband didn’t even look).
One is a huge grey and black dog with pale brown/yellow eyes. Garret is convinced that the dog is part alien and can teleport. They got a DNA test done for him a few years ago, but he was a mixture of too many things, including - but not limited to - wolf, Siberian husky, corgi and chihuahua. Greyhound, St. Bernard and labrador also came up. Nobody wants to know how a dog like that came to fruition.
The next is a pair of cats, picked up together with three other kittens. The litter was affectionately named ‘Voltron’ and each kitten was given a colour, Black, Red, Blue, Yellow and Green. Red, a tiny orange tabby, didn’t tolerate anyone except for his husband and their kids (and occasionally Garret) so she never left home. Yellow, a chunky calico was the only kitten able to calm Red down (Besides Black, but Black was swooped up pretty quickly). Yellow took a shining to Hunk. Hunk took one look at the little thing curled up in his briefcase and knew she was never finding another home. Apparently, the rest of the kittens went to their friends, so they have little kitten play dates together.
When Garret isn’t talking about his ‘adorable and handsome husband’ he’s talking about their kids. His three-year-old twin baby girl’s and his one-year-old little boy. He loves them with his entire heart. Everyone in his class has seen pictures of them. The girls have black hair, dark skin and Garret's warm brown eyes. Their faces are pointier than Garret’s is, and their eye shape is different, but there is no denying who’s kids they are. Their little brother has his husband’s eyes, the deepest blue any of them have ever seen (although some students claim that they are familiar). His skin isn’t quite as dark as his sisters and fathers, but his hair is as black as night.
Garret’s baby girls love to dance. Garret’s phone is filled with videos of both Charlie and Kennedy dancing. They’re one and two and three years old and barely have any coordination, but they wiggle their booties and wave their arms around like they were born to do it. They jump and twist and twirl, and a pale hand steadies them when they unbalance. There is a significant improvement since they were one, and Garret proudly proclaims that they’ll be professional dancers by the time they’re five.
The rest of Garret’s phone is filled with pictures of baby Blake, food smeared all over his face. He’s tiny, much smaller than his sisters were at that age (Everyone has seen pictures from after they were born to now.) When he’s asked, Garret just laughs and says that he takes after his husband. Apparently, he has always been tiny. Garret also says that Blake takes after his daddy and would eat anything set on his plate. (“Unlike a certain fussy someone I know!” Nobodies sure if he’s talking about his twins or his husband.)
Garret is by far the friendliest professor on campus. McClain is nice but obnoxious and nosy, Holt and Holt are both intelligent and intimidating, although the older slightly less so. Shirogane is just so… perfect, and for that reason alone he is unapproachable. Most professors share a few things about themselves; McClain is from Cuba and has known Garret since childhood. He has a huge family with lots of siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. He considers Garret’s kids to also be part of that. The Holts are, obviously, siblings and certifiable geniuses. It’s hard to get them to talk about anything other than their work, but Pidge loves her dog and will rant about how cute Bae-Bae is. Shirogane doesn’t have much family, just a cat, a dog, and his best friend, his husband and their kids. He sees them all the time and loves them to bits.
The professor on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Garret is Kogane. The man is a brick wall. Nobody’s even sure of his first name. He’s dark and mysterious. He works with the languages department, teaching various English classes. No one knows anything about him. He can be funny and quick-witted, but only in smaller groups. Most people are terrified of him, but he is actually pretty nice as long as you aren’t messing around in his class. He lets students have extensions on papers, talks to them if he notices them struggling. His office is always open for them and they can contact him whenever they want. Most of his longer-term students love him and are fiercely protective of him.
Abby is one of those people. She’s in her second year but had to take one of his classes for the first time. She had been scared shitless, but soon realised he was nowhere near what the rumours implied. He can be dorky sometimes, and shy, but she loves him. For someone who is trying to get an engineering degree, his classes are hard, but he always checks in on her and the other students to make sure they understand. She’s not sure she would have passed any of her recent exams if it weren’t for him.
It’s a rare Saturday where Abby doesn’t have any work. Her homework is all due next weekend, and her dorm room is relatively clean. She has a rare moment to herself and isn’t quite sure what to do with it. Since the sun is shining, she heads down to the park. It’s full of screaming and laughing kids, barking dogs and tired parents. She settles down under a tree and pulls out her diary. Kogane had encouraged her to write daily, about anything at all so she tries her hardest. She’ll never be a world-class author – not that she’d want that – but she likes to think she’s getting better.
Half an hour passes, and she loses herself in her writing. She describes everything around her, the trees, the grass, the smell of the flowers and coffee from the café across the street. The kids racing around, the dogs playing together. She’s so engrossed she doesn’t even notice the huge dog heading her direction.
“Kosmo!” a familiar voice startles her out of her revere, just in time for a mountain of a dog to bowl her over.
“Kosmo! Bad boy! Come here!” The dog licks her cheek and mournfully walks back to his owner. It’s only when she’s gotten over her shock does she recognise both the dog and the owner.
It’s Kogane. And Garret’s dog, Kosmo. Kogane has a baby strapped to his chest. A very familiar baby with adorable chubby cheeks and big blue eyes. Blue eyes that are identical to the man that is holding him.
“You’re Garret’s husband?” she exclaims before she can stop herself. She wants the ground to swallow her whole. She wishes she had never gone to this park. She should have stayed in her bed like she originally planned.
Kogane and the baby give her twin wide-eyed looks of surprise. No wonder people thought they’d seen Blake’s eye colour before, the kid is a literal double for his dad but with Garret’s skin colour.
“Umm, yeah. Did you not know that?” Kogane asks hesitantly. Blake fusses in his carrier and Kogane bounces him. It’s so natural, she can tell he has done it a hundred times before. She wonders why she never thought Kogane could be paternal because looking at him now he could never be anything but.
“Keith, hold onto Kennedy for a moment could you, baby? Charlie’s got herself stuck into a tree again and I need to rescue her.” Garret appears out of nowhere to shove another child into Kogane’s arms. He doesn’t even notice this awkward staring contest the two have gotten themselves into before he’s gone again.
Kogane – no, Keith - shifts so he has a better hold on Kennedy. She pats his face and then tries to shove her fingers into Blake’s mouth. Kogane catches her hands before she manages to, not even looking away. Kosmo has vanished again.
Abby realises that Kogane asked her a question and instead of answering she has been staring at him for close to five minutes with her mouth agape.
“N-No. I mean he always talks about his hu- you, but he never even mentioned your name and even if he did none of us know your first name so it would be pointless.” Like a blabbering fool, she can’t stop herself from talking.
“My name is on the door to my office. It literally says ‘Keith Garret-Kogane’ on it. Hunk’s door says ‘Tsuyoshi Garret-Kogane’.”
Abby blushes fiercely. She’s been in both of their offices more times than she could count but the moment she saw the surname she was looking for she zoned the rest out.
“Appa, who’s that?” Kennedy has hidden her face in her dad’s hair but peeks out every few seconds.
Keith smiles gently, “This is one of mine your Daddy’s students, Abby. Abby, meet Kennedy and this is baby Blake. Charlie is around here somewhere, as well as Hunk and Kosmo.”
As though summoned by the mentions of their names, Garret appears with Charlie on his shoulders and Kosmo on a leash.
“Sorry about that baby- oh, Abby I didn’t see you there! How are you?” Garret immediately breaks into a smile upon seeing her. Most teachers dread meeting their students outside of class, but Garret is the exception. He genuinely wants to know how she is. She can’t exactly say ‘mortified’.
“I’m umm, good. I was just relaxing since I don’t have any papers due ‘til the weekend.”
Garret somehow smiles even broader. Kogane turns to him with a mischievous (god did she ever think she’d use that word to describe Kogane?) smirk. “Abby, somehow, despite being one of your favourite and most intelligent students, didn’t realise that I was your husband,” he says.
Abby’s face burns a vibrant red as Garret laughs hard. Charlie screeches as she’s jostled on his shoulders, and Kennedy reaches up so she can sit up there too.
“It wasn’t just me! Nobody realised it!” she protested. “You’ve never shown any pictures of you together.”
Kogane raises an eyebrow, and Garret smiles weakly. “I know you value your privacy; I didn’t want to share those pictures of our home life if it would make you uncomfortable.”
Kogane honest-to-god blushes. Abby suddenly feels like she’s imposing on a private moment.
“Oh, um, is that the time? I have work in a few, I have to get going! See you on Monday!” she turns and powerwalks away, looking back as they call “Bye!” All three kids are waving with huge smiles scrunching their cheeks. Garret and Kogane share knowing grins. She knew it was a weak excuse, but that conversation was a disaster. She had to get out of there before she embarrassed herself further.
The scene was so painfully domestic that it sears itself onto her eyelids. Garret with his arm around Kogane, a child on each shoulder. Kogane holding the third child as they all smile and laugh.
The next Friday, Kogane shows up to Garret class with all three kids and the dog in tow and pulls Garret into a kiss. He winks at Abby as he makes eye contact with her on her way out.