Chapter Text
*after Christmas break,*
"Have a seat, have a seat,'' Corran says from the doorway, he closes the door with a gentle push and sighs, happily tapping his hands to his thighs as he walks in front of the class. "I hope we all had a fine winter break and a new year, I had a fine bottle of wine with a few friends of mine-" Corran drones on about his break while Keith sits in the back of the class picking at the chipped nail polish on his nails as he listened to some Playlist he made a few night ago, some pop punk song was playing quietly in his ear while he taped his foot on the back of the desk in front of him.
The kid in front of him shot him a glare, Keith smirk and gave his desk a small shoved causing the boy to stand up. Keith raised his hands and lowered his feet after hearing Corran tell the boy to sit down.
Keith laughed to himself while the boy grumbled a few curses to himself. Keith wouldn't say he was a distracted kid during class, it's just it's hard to pay attention to Corran when he rambles on and on about things Keith never has and -- most likely-- never will be interested in. From what it might be like to own a crocodile, to how everyones winter break was, Keith could of sworn he never taught the class any social studies, history or what ever this class was.
But regardless eventually Corran finished talking about his eventful and totally interesting break, by finally saying "I'm sure most of you found that quite boring so I will not be asking you all about your break." Corran claps his hands together as a group of kids in the far back cheer.
Corran sends them a displeased look as he walks over to his desk picking up a stack of neatly piled paper, "that being said, you all have a quiz on the ancient city of balmera-" his words were cut short when everyone including Keith groaned and started to complain about having a quiz on a Monday morning. "Quiet, you guys know about this for awhile, you should of been prepared for this, maybe this could be a lesson for all of us-"
Corran's words started to fade out of Keith's mind as he sat up and continued picking the black nail polish off his nails, mumbling a few song lyrics under his breath while Corran passed out the quizzes.
When Corran got to Keith he taped on his shoulder catching his attention before pointing to his earbud.
"Can't have you listening to music mr.kogane, it's not allowed in a testing room, don't want you to get too used to a distraction now do we." Corran smiled before placing a thin packet of paper on his desk.
"Whatever." Keith rolled his eyes tossing his earbuds into his bag before writing down the answers to the test,
Lance hated moving houses. That was that, he hated the long drives, he hated his older siblings who picked on him, most of all he hated packing and unpacking the car. Somehow his mother managed to perfectly set the boxes in the car so one they couldn't move around while they drove across the country and two so they would be so puzzled together that Lance could barely get a grip on the sides of the boxes.
At one point he was pulling so hard he was sure he got some rug burn on his fingers. "Rachel!" Lance shouted when he noticed his sister just standing on the side of the driveway, sleeves rolled up past her elbows showing off the chicken scratch that was her soul marks, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, like she was ready to help Lance unpack but by the phone in her hand that she was frantically typing into she was definitely not planning on helping Lance. "You're supposed to help me, you know." He huffed trying to wiggle a box out of the trunk but failed.
"Go ask Veronica, I'm sure she will help you, I'm a little busy." She lifted her gaze a little, an unamused humpfted exiting her mouth as she looked back at her phone.
Lance groaned and threw his head back. "But mama said you have to help me, punishment for sneaking out or whatever." Lance lost grip of the box he was holding onto and fell flat on his back, that was going to hurt in the morning. As lance attempted to sit up he let out a faint "ouch." Before trying to get Rachel to help him. He failed miserably, all he did was get her to just be annoyed with him.
Rachel glared at Lance. "I said I'm busy," she crossed her arms and walked back into the house, stomping slightly as she went, a signature dramatic teenage mood.
"She's just upset," he heard his brother Marco's voice call from beside him, he was leaning on the side of the car with an amused look as his brother struggled to sit up as he rubbed his shoulder.
"If that's upset I don't want to see her angry." Lance smirked as his brother laughed. Marco gave Lance a hand letting him use it to not only stand up but steady himself.
"C'mon let's get these boxes unloaded." He smiled, patting his hand over one of the smaller boxes.
…
After nearly two hours of struggling to get any of the boxes outside the car Marco and lance finally got each and every box inside their new home, the celebrated with a high five and a loud shout that was cut off when Veronica told them to quiet down, Lance and Marco shared grins as they walked into the kitchen.
Mama had made up some soup she had stolen from one of the boxes they had unloaded from the car.
"Come sit." Veronica smiled. "Mama's almost done with dinner." She sets out bowls and spoons before walking out of the kitchen to call Rachel, Luis and Lisa, who he assumes stole their boxes and are now trying to set up their own rooms.
Mama turned off the stove as everyone filled the seats around the table, she poured soup into all the bowls Veronica had set out for her and handed them off to everyone.
When she sat down, she cupped her hands and started to say grace. "Thank you lord for this meal, thank you for blessing our family with the opportunity to start a new life here, I wish my husband and my children's father could of seen the scenery here it's much different from Cuba.--" Lance's mother continued her prayer while he and his siblings waited in silence for her to finish. "Amen." She finally says with a smile, after that everyone starts to eat.
Lance pulled the sleeves of his hoodie up before he start so he would spill any of the broth on himself, but his efforts were useless as Rachel jumped up flicking her spoon towards him to point on his arm and shout "Lance there's a spider on your arm!" Lance laughed at her before calming her down by poking at the soul mark,
faint colors of red and pink tinted her tan cheeks as she laughed it off sinking slightly in her chair embarrassed she'd ever believed it was real. mama looked over at Lance and smiled. "Did your soulmate draw that?" She looked over it fondly admiring the small details in the hairs, highlights, shadows, the colors of the eyes. Lance himself looked over repeatedly until he memorized each and every thin Line.
"Yeah, they made it last night, nearly kept me awake all night too." He grinned as he thumbed over the legs. He liked to watch his soulmate work, seeing the process of sketch to line art to color amazed him. He appreciated the care his soulmate put into the design. He and his soulmate didn't have the best relationship, at this point lance didn't really call it a relationship at all, they barely talked and when they did it was short and hardly sweet, it was like the person on the other end could care less if lance existed at all. And in the moments Lance felt that kind of hatred through his connection he felt alone. You're supposed to love your soulmate, that is what he was always taught, he didn't think it was possible for his soulmate to hate him. But he didn't want to think about this right now; he wanted to gloat and brag about how amazing his soulmate is.
"Ah well don't stay up too late with them, not like this one over here." Mama ruffled Rachel's hair up earning a glare from her.
"It's not my fault we got distracted." Rachel's voice was small and shy while she ate spoonful's of soup.
"I won't mama and plus it's not like they write every day." Lance frowns slightly before bouncing back into a smile.
"Alright mi hijo, regardless this girl seems to be a great artist I wonder how someone could become so talented." Lance nodded, wincing as she implied his soulmate was a girl.
In all fairness that was a possibility, lances match could be a girl who is not only impossible to talk to, but is amazing artist. he's met a few girl like that back in Cuba but he could help that part in his chest that hoped his soulmate was a guy, the small gayest part of him. He hadn't ever voiced that hope though, he wasn't sure how his mother would react, would she accept the fact his soulmate could be a guy or would she refuse to believe it until it came true… did she even think it was possible?
His mind wandered off in deep thought while he spooned warm soup into his mouth, muted voices of his siblings surrounding him as he gazed off into space. This was going to be on his mind all day wasn't it.
"Come on Shiro it's not that bad." Keith crossed his arms when Shiro pushed him through the parking lot.
"Of course it's bad Keith!" He shouts stopping in the middle of the parking lot. "You punched a kid in the face and he got a broken nose, what if he goes to the hospital and he needs surgery? What if we have to pay for it Keith? We don't have that kind of money." Shiro groans and pulls at his hair. Keith didn't mean to start a fight today, he really didn't but some kid got in his face in the lunch line and Keith defaulted into punching him. He sees how fucked up that is but he couldn't let himself get walked on by some lower who thinks his cool for bully the school freak.
"He got in my face Shiro, I'm sorry it wasn't smart- I. I'll find a way to repay you if you have to pay for medical bills or- whatever." Keith pulled his arms close to his chest while Shiro groaned.
"No Keith, it's fine, it's just bills have been a bit hectic with the rent going up, I shouldn't take my stress out on you, even though what you did was stupid." Shiro laughed.
Keith let his lips curl upwards for a moment, "Yeah. But the kid had it coming he got in my face and was being a dick." Keith rolled his eyes remembering what the boy from earlier said.
"He got in your face?" Shiro laughed clearly trying to change the tone of the conversation.. "They should know by now that you bite." He shook his head, continuing to walk towards his truck.
Keith didn't always ignore his soulmate, even though he tried really hard to. He ignored the corny pick up lines they would write on the inside of his palm only laughing once or twice at a few, he ignored the questions about what he liked to do for fun, what he looked like if he was a guy or girl, he ignored most of their questions,
But sometimes, on a rare occasion when he was in a good mood he would answer a few of their questions, mostly those were the ones about movies, shows or even books he had read. Answering those kept them satisfied long enough so they wouldn't start up asking more questions again for a while, Keith assumed it was caused by the shock from him actually responding to them.
other than him answering small meaningless questions their most common form of communication was drawings, not like the doodles you would find on the inside of his tests or notes, no. These were Keith's drawings, art that he was proud of.
drawings that he could sit and work on for hours and have sat and worked on for hours.
he often would paint in the comforting silence of his room letting his emotions drive where his markers or brushes went.
when his soul connection fully opened, he would continue to trace his skin with black ink, not quickly stopping like he usually did, he let his soulmate in for these small quiet moments,
most of the soul marks he made were of monsters, skulls, spiders, horror story characters or just really anything he found the littlest bit scary,
originally he started to draw things like that because he thought maybe if he made his drawings scarier it would scare off his soulmate making them ignore him too but in the end they were just amazed about how detailed they were.
So in response Keith branched out a little, starting to enjoy drawing on himself. Recently he started drawing flowers, they were mixed in with an assortment of insects or skulls. Today he kept that theme and was aiming for a string of roses done high over his bicep, a long vine intertwined between the flowers, thick barbed thorns spiking off from it. on the edges of the thorns he painted red over them to make it look as close to the color of blood he could before he decided he was finished, he took one final glance in the mirror before pulling his black hoodie over his head and walking over to his bed and passing out for the night.