Any idiot could tell it's the first day of school. Seriously, fuck my life right now. I've only stepped two inches past the front door and my stomach's already having a negative reaction to the atmosphere.

I can practically touch all the teenage hormones roaming the halls as I walk down the corridors. My vision is obstructed in all directions by the dumbasses of this school. People making out in corners, getting bullied or being the bullies, and girls freaking out about not seeing each other in forever. 

With a roll of my eyes at the couple crossing over the PDA line, I inspect the slip of paper with my locker number and code on it.

Locker C-265, and apparently this school makes you share with someone else, just another thing  to hate about Altea High. Not even two minutes after checking my paper, I tumble into my locker, quite literally since the kids here can be pretty brutal.

I'm first, so I unlock it and claim the bottom. As soon as I place my books and other miscellaneous items inside who do you think comes down the hall? 

Lance Fucking McClain. 

And suddenly, somehow being in this school for not even ten minutes already feels draining. If I'm being honest, it's too early for me to care about the fact that we're in the same hallway. I mean it's bound to happen, the school's not exactly spacious. 

It's a small school, small town, and besides it's not like he knows I exist so what's the point in freaking out? 

He strolls closer and I push myself further into the metallic confines of my locker to avoid any contact whatsoever. However, instead of bounding down the hall like I expected, and hoped, he came right up to the locker beside me and two-finger saluted with a cocky grin.

This is not happening.

"Hey neighbor!" Lance says with a cheery tone as her puts his hand on the locker next to mine to support his weight.

"Did you want something?" I question, keeping my voice a nice shade of fuck off. I don't want to piss off someone as dramatic as Lance, I might as well shout from the rooftop to get everyone's attention. Maybe he just wants to ask for a pencil or something, don't freak out.

"Do I get top? I feel like top is more my style." He winks at me and I ignore it until I get his dirty little joke. Was he flirting with me? Probably not he's obviously straight.

I can feel heat flushing through my cheeks but apparently, and luckily, he doesn't notice. Why should I care anyways? I hate Lance, and his perfect little world...

"Wait. You were assigned to this locker too?" The gears in my mind clicked together and my heart started racing. You have got to be kidding me? I knew I was oblivious, but this realization probably takes the cake. 

Lance nods his head and looks back at me. "Duh! I'm not just here for the thrill of it." He laughs a little at his snarky remark and in my head, in case you haven't noticed, I'm flipping shit. 

What if he goes through my stuff? Skims my journals? Rummages around in my sketches? There are some really personal things that I usually keep in my locker to feed my boredom in class, do I have to stop bringing them? Or carry everything all throughout the day and stop bringing things from home?

I lose my train of thought when my mind snaps back into reality. Lance is staring at me.

"Umm... why are you staring at me?" I'm confused and quite frankly I feel like punching something right now. I just want to get school over with and it's barely even started.

Lance points to the locker with his gaze. "Don't flatter yourself, I need to put my books in there." He leans closer to the locker as I grunt in frustration and move out of the way. Before I fully walk away though, Lance turns and looks at me, his books mid-way on the shelf.

"And just so you know, you were staring at me mullet, although I don't blame you." He winks at me again, this time pairing it with a grin that makes me want to punch his lights out. 

I almost did too, until Hunk came running over to me. He stopped short and almost fell over before putting his hands on his knees to help him catch his breath. He was carrying something in his hands that looked like one of my journals, one of my more personal ones.

Initially, my reaction to this sight was that I couldn't believe I just left it lying around, how stupid could I be? 

"Keith. You almost. left your. journal. in the courtyard..." he spoke between breaths than handed it to me carefully, probably able to read the misdirected frustration in my eyes. I was about ready to leave until Lance walked forward and looked over at Hunk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey Hunk, long time no see huh?" I'm so nervous, and I have no reason to be, we used to be best friends.

Used to be.

I used to hang out with Pidge too but they were getting too close and I didn't want them to find out about my family... about me. I was grabbing my arm to hide my shaky hands, looking at the floor, most of my previous confidence drained at this point.

I really didn't want Hunk to suspect anything but I was acting very different at school than I usually do, and it made everyone around us seem very perplexed, yet interested. Keith's look really caught my eye, mostly rage but a few flashes of sympathy flew past his pupils when his eyes drifted towards Hunk. That's probably because I stopped hanging out with Hunk and Pidge way before he moved into Shiro's place, but I ended it in a shitty way. 

"Yeah, it's been a while. You know I'll see you at lunch Keith. I just wanted to give you that because I know how important it is to you..." Hunk looked at Keith carefully with commiseration for longer than an interaction would usually be considered unimportant.

It's just a journal. What could be so special about it? His pain stricken eyes faced me, so tear inducing, so broken just at the sight of me. His gaze lingered in my eyes for a quick second before he hurriedly walked to first period.

I'll admit I feel more than guilty about how I ended things with Pidge and Hunk, but the important thing is that they're safe. That's all I wanted for them.

"Yeah thanks, I'll see you at lunch man." Keith was rubbing his wrists again. I'm kinda curious to know why, but it's probably just some nervous tick. Everybody has those, I'm just reading too far into it.

People are still staring. 

A little thing you should know is that not a lot happens in a small town like this so if you want anything to gossip about or some form of twisted entertainment, you pay close attention to the things around you; but even so, oblivion has a way of controlling what you see and the ways in which you see it.

I act quickly and my eyes dart down to Keith's journal. This is gonna be such a dick move but what can else could I do? I've spent this long trying to hide myself and I won't stop now. 

"So, you have a diary Keefy?" I taunt. My hands twitch in compressed curiosity. I'm genuinely interested about what's inside but wouldn't you be too if it was practically being dangled in your face?

I guess it worked cause Keith's cheeks turn red as tabasco sauce and I can't tell if it's from embarrassment or anger. 

"Can I look inside? I want to see what you've written about me!" I tried to grab it from him, teasing him playfully and in the midst of the tease I actually managed to grab it, waving it above my head because he's short and obviously can't reach.

His eyes were wide in... fear? He tried to grab it, jumping up, pleading. His teeth grit to prevent the venom in his bite from spilling over.

"Lance give it back!" He clawed at my wrists and I pretended like it wasn't painful on my bruise kissed skin through my green and grey army jacket. He bit his lip in concentration, each reach becoming more desperate and his temper running thin.

Like an idiot, I continued to provoke him and in hindsight I deserved what I got, but that didn't make me anymore prepared to deal with it. 

"Fine. You don't have to read your fanfiction to me but at least give me an honorable mention when you publish it." I pout, bending forward to reach his face to mine. His cloudy eyes were brewing into a wicked storm as he grabbed the collar of my shirt and slammed me into the lockers. He held on and looked at my face with lighting streaks bursting in his irises.

I definitely underestimated his strength and that was, no doubt, a big mistake. I guess curiosity really did kill the cat, cause it's about to mutilate me. 

"What the fuck makes you think this book is filled with daydreams and lollipops you bastard?" His teeth are bared and flashing aspects of a wild coyote getting ready to rip their prey to shreds. The point is that Keith's pissed and I don't blame him.

He isn't mad though... no... he's not mad.

He seems terrified, but why? This whole act of his makes me nervous, and confused? despite it being my fault that I instigated a reaction like this in the first place. I was starting to have flashbacks, worse is that they were from last night.

You do things to me Keith Kogane, but those things aren't always beneficial to me or you. Something's changing between us, I can just tell... don't ask me how because I couldn't tell you but things were bound to change sooner or later.

I guess it's just sooner.

His grip was tightening on my shirt and I was beginning to tear up from the pain of pressure on my bruised... well everything. Obviously I choked them down because something this painless isn't worth crying over.

It seemed like the present was melting away. Keith's violent purple eyes were washed away and replaced with a dark brown set. His raven hair shrunk and shifted from his normal mysterious color to my father's midnight chocolate brown. His face grew longer, he grew taller, his lips scrunched into a frustrated scowl, breath reeking of alcohol, eyebrows scrunched in concentration to differentiate fantasy and reality, to keep from tumbling over.

Everything grew too chaotic, all too familiar, in such a short amount of time. It all happened so fast, my breaths became shallow and labored, my pupils shrunk to pinpoints before I snapped them shut and turned my face away, my eyebrows furrowed anticipating the next blow.

My mouth disobeyed my mind and I couldn't help but let an attempted plea slip out. 

"Por favor, no vuelvas a golpearme padre, te prometo que lo haré mejor solo que guardes el cinturón!" My teeth felt like they were about to crack under the stress I was putting them through. After a few moments of silence, my eyes chipped away at my eyelids till they finally opened and were met with Keith's face, fallen. (English: Please don't hit me again father, I promise I'll do better just put the belt away.)

His mouth was slightly agape. The dark circles under his eyes a little more prominent as he let out a shaky breath. The people around the halls cleared and went to class, since an occurrence like this isn't exactly rare. 

My eyes threatened to spill when I realized what had just happened but looking back at Keith, the storm settled and his eyes almost seemed sympathetic. Did he understand what I was saying? Fuck. I hope not.

He took a deep breath, his head to the side and down to avoid my gaze and then set me down without another word. He opened his indigo eyes and searched mine, a purpose crawling through his facial features as though he's attempting to locate something that I've been hiding.

His eyes are... calming.

This guy just triggered your PTSD and you think his eyes are-... I mean-... this has definitely been an interesting morning. In the midst of my thought, he somehow ripped his book from my grasp, which I would have given back anyway, and hugged it close to his chest giving the impression that someone would have to pry it from his cold dead hands to get him to part from it again. 

"It's not a diary, it's a journal. There's a difference..." He mumbled, using his thumb to trace the rose design on the cover. He secured a black backpack, littered with pins, on his back and got ready to leave, quickly getting his bearings before speed-walking down the hall.

Keith Kogane...

What's your story?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey guys! So I updated. I'm in the middle to editing and I accidentally got rid of whatever was in this note. All I remember is that it was written and published when the season 7 trailer came out.

Enjoy palidudes!