>>104836861>implying that it's not background just because it existed in the show for <10 framesI don't understand you people.
Background doesn't have to mean "completely absent". It was a tiny, seconds-long clip in the epilogue. It required no development because it had fucking nothing to do with the plot of the show or any of Shiro's conflicts.
I mean, for the grand majority of the show Shiro's conflicts were never about his romances. He had his personal struggle with accepting death, bearing the burden of being the strong leader that his team of rookies needed him to be, and his shit with the Black Lion and Zarkon. Whether or not he's chatting up some Atlas deckhand off-camera is irrelevant.
With the actual romance in the show, you had Lance discovering his own testicles and confessing to Allura because it was a pivotal moment in his character development (or at least it should've been, had the execution been better). His personal struggle wasn't about coming to terms with a fatal illness, but rather it was about him having no self-confidence and thinking himself useless. Finally believing that he was good enough for Allura reflected how he'd grown as a person.
Shiro, on the other hand, wasn't a loser. He was a successful military all-star chad right from day 1. There is nothing interesting in writing a romance for him because that just wouldn't be a believable challenge for him to overcome.
