Chapter Text
“There's a part I can't tell, about the dark I know well”
Keith Kogane was losing his goddamn mind. One more word of Latin may drive him into insanity, he was sure of it.
“Psst hey Keith,” he heard whispered to him from behind. He slowly turned to see Allura Farla smiling innocently at him. “Do you want to go to the mall with me after class?” an almost pleading look plastered across her face.
He rolled his eyes, but not before he flashed her a smile and nodded. Keith was thankful for Allura, her having been the longest friend he had ever had. When they met that first day of freshman year, while the haunting halls of Garrison University forced them to socialize, Keith had thought he would never want anything to do with her again.
The first reason was that Allura would not stop talking. She would talk about her hometown. She would talk about her major. She would talk about anything and everything she could possibly think of. Then, when Keith decided to go back to his dorm, low and behold, Allura lived right across the hall.
To this day, no one knew Keith without Allura, and vice versa. That same night, Allura had realized she had forgotten to buy honey for her night time team, and had come to ask Keith if she could borrow any. When he had said yes, it was an instant friendship. The honey lead to having tea together, that lead to walking to classes and hanging out. Now at senior year, they had plans to move to New York together the pursue their dreams.
Allura wanted to be a fashion designer. She had been designing costumes since she was young, and had even had some of her works featured on the Miss America competition. She took her work seriously, and was determined to not stumble or let anyone in her way. Keith, on the other hand, just wanted to live. He had spent his whole life feeling trapped in a small cave. He wanted to feel free. Free as a songbird traveling through the skies, singing so loud that everyone mentioned how beautiful it was.
Keith’s mind was snapped back to attention when he heard a ruler slap against his desk. He looked up to see his Latin professor, a tall, lean man by the name of Lotor, standing above him.
“Dazing off again Keith?” he had said in a low voice. “We both know what happened the last time you almost failed this class. We wouldn’t want that again now would we?”
With quaking hand, Keith shook his head with haste. “No sir.” he mumbled under his breath, hoping that it would make Lotor leave his space. When he looked up, he was met with a wicked smirk he knew all too well.
“Good.” was all that was said before the professor went to check on the rest of the students.
Taking a deep breath, he went back to his work with steadier hands. He finished up quickly, leaving to classroom as soon as the paper was now out of his hands. Pulling out his phone, he went to text Allura to meet him in the campus café when she was finished.
—-----------------------
Once he arrived, he immediately got in line for coffee. He went ahead and ordered Allura one too, an iced white Americano, since he knew she was probably kill him if he didn’t. He flashed a small smile to his favorite worker, Pidge, as he also order him a iced white chocolate mocha with an extra shot of espresso.
Almost at the speed of light, in the time it took for Pidge to make literally two coffees, Allura was by his side yet again. Laughing, he handed her the coffee, beginning to listen to her excruciating long rant about how “Latin doesn’t even exist anymore” and “it is probably the most useless class she will ever have to take in her life.”
Pushing.
Yes Keith had to basically push Allura out to her car. Talking, talking, and more talking.
He finally had to stop her himself.
“‘Llura if you talk all damn day the mall is gonna close. Do you really wanna complain about Latin, or would you rather go look at cute boys and convince them to buy us pretzels?!”
He was laughing as he spoke, knowing that she knew he was dead serious.
Keith loved mall pretzels, probably just as much as he loved coffee. Those were two of his favorite things to do, not including; reading, stargazing, music, going to movie theaters, and the comfort of his bed. He just loved loving things, and it made life a lot easier.
Growing up life wasn’t easy, so he had to make the most of the little things he had. Romanticizing his life as Allura liked to call it.
Flipping down the car mirror, Keith started to fix his hair and touch up the lipstick he had applied this morning. It wasn’t hard to tell, but many people did not realize that Keith was genderqueer. Most usually just thought he was two people, which was a fun game to play when his expression changed throughout the day. However, how else was he going to get those pretzels other than looking sexy as hell?
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Once they had arrived, they made a beeline for the food court. There was always guys there looking for adventure. By adventure, he meant someone to show their money and ‘looks’ off to, if you could even call them that. They found a table quickly, sitting down and beginning to gossip about the latest things they had heard on campus.
Looking around as he talked, he made eye contact with the cutest boy he had ever seen. This boy, worked at the milkshake shack. His crystal blue eyes and charming smile almost made Keith walk up and buy a milkshake every time he was here, but never followed through. How could he talk to someone with arms like a Greek God? I mean hell the guy could probably break him–
“Keith! Snap out of it!” Allura squealed. “You have been staring over there for three whole minutes. Why do you not just go talk to the guy, or for the love of God just order a milkshake?”
She was teasing him, he knew that, but nonetheless he felt a cherry red blush creep onto his skin.
“I can’t just do that and you know it!” he exclaimed in return. “I wanna see you walk up to the hottest guy ever and order something called a creamy master piece. I mean he looks so fucking nasty in his kahkis that I may faint before even getting over there! ”
Loud laughter errupted from their table, enough to cause said hottest guy ever to look in Keith’s direction, making direct eye contact with him. If he wasn’t red enough, Keith probably now looked like the perfect candidate for consequences of going outside without sunscreen in the summer.
Panicking, he flashed him a smile and saluted at him. Keith had fucking saluated at the guy. Which, by all means if he wasn’t embarrassed enough, made him laugh before going back to whatever he was doing.
Keith, on the other hand, took this as a wonderful opportunity to slam his head again the wooden table in front of him.
“Shut up.”
He spoke immediately, just sensing the snickers Allura was holding back.
“Okay okay shutting up!” she said through small giggle, taking some deep breaths to calm down. “How do you say we do some shopping to forget, whatever that was?”
Peering up from his abashed hidey hole, Keith nodded in reluctance, knowing that now he would be dragged through every store in the whole mall before they were allowed to leave.
And that he was. Every. Single. Store. He hadn’t even realized they had went into half of them, reliving the small moment he had shared with the milkshake boy hours ago. He was probably gone by now. Off his shift and had forgotten about the scrawny person who had saluated at him.
Drowning out most of Allura’s words, Keith was sorting through the clothes rack in front of him, trying to find literally anything he liked. For a moment he glanced up, seeing him, blinking, and then him being gone.
He shook his head quickly, knowing that he was imagining things. Why on Earth would his Latin professor be at the JCPenny at the mall? And even if he was, if was definitely not because he was following Keith absolutely everywhere.
That was just his bitch of living.
Keith always thought he saw people he didn’t. His therapist said it was because of unresolved trauma, but he genuinely just thought he was crazy. What went wrong? Who knows.
He went back to sorting through the clothes, finding a few pieces he liked. They checked out and went about their time, finishing their laps of the stores, finally securing the pretzels Keith had promised himself, and set off back to the dorms.
—-----------------------
They arrived back into Keith’s room, stumbling with laughter as they threw their bags down. Not even remembering what was funny anymore, wiping tears from their eyes, they started to wind down.
“Soooo are you ever gonna ask the milkshake guy for his number?” Allura ushered quickly into the conversations.
Rolling his eyes, Keith flopped back onto the bed.
“And how am I supposed to even fathom doing so? Walking up to him and be like ‘ Hey! My name is Keith and I’ve seen you in here for the past two months, I think you’re really hot. Can I get your number?’ No of course not! I would rather keep admiring the pretty boy from afar thank you very much.” he said matter o’factly.
Allura just shook her head at him. “Keithhhh you are never going to get a boyfriend if you do not talk to anyone but me in your life! I don’t think you want to date me either!”
This caused another fit of laughter bursting amongst the two.
—-----------------------
Hours past, movies were watched, and more tea was spilled between the two of them. They talked of all the people Allura saw at the mall, more about the milkshake boy, and what their schedules looked like the next semester. Of course, they only had Latin together again, but it was the last section they had to take together.
What Keith never noticed, was the looming figure that had been following him everywhere that day. Watching his every move, no matter where he was.
Picking up his drinks from the café.
Pushing Allura out to her car.
Sitting in the food court.
Wandering the mall.
Looking through the JCPenny clothes rack.
Getting his pretzel.
And returning home.
He had only seen a glimpse, of what he thought was his imagination. Something that was haunting him and his anxieties of failing his Latin class once again. Having to go through, the unthinkable, to just get a passing grade in hope that he would move to the next section.
The fact that Lotor now followed his every move, and was not a fan of how found Keith now seemed to be over this boy from the milkshake shack.
Keith had now moved to take off his makeup and change into his pajamas, Allura having retreated to her own room for the night as he did so. As these actions took places, Keith did not noticed the small flashes of light peaking in through his windows, nor did he even think of the blurry photos that were being taken of him from his window.
He also did not notice the smirk that rolled onto Lotor’s face as he added these new photos to his cellphones collection…
…of over 200 pictures just of Keith.
“So I leave wantin' just to hide
Knowin' deep inside
You are comin' to me”