Chapter Text
"You're such a fucking idiot!" Keith is thrown across the room, coming to an abrupt stop as he hits the wall. "I told you to do one thing, ONE GOD DAMN THING! And you can't even do that right!" over and over again his stomach gets kicked, causing bruises to start to show. He tries to block every blow by curling up into a ball, but no attempt to brace himself from the kicks lessens the amount of pain coursing through his body.
Each kick is knocking more and more air out of his lungs making it harder to breathe. His father picks him up by the collar of his shirt and punches him across the face. His arm goes back for another swing... Keith's "Step Mom" grabs his father's arm to stop him. "Cole that is enough! You're going to kill the kid if you keep this up." Cole just looked at her with a scowl and let go of him, making him drop to the floor. He walks away from Keith and heads back to the couch to watch his show, trying to calm the rage inside him.
Keith is barely conscious and in a lot of pain as he lies on the floor curled up in his own blood. His 'Step Mom' helps him up and guides him to his room. She helps lay him on his bed, then leaves to get a wet cloth and bandages. She comes back and sits next to his bed as she wipes the blood off of him. Keith lets out a groan in pain as she cleans his wounds. "Shh, you did this to yourself. I've told you many times before, that if you just did what he tells you to do without being a smart-ass you would be fine." Keith rolls his eyes at her. "Vanessa, Why do you even try to help if you obviously don't care?" She stops wiping the blood off and looks away from Keith. "Don't get yourself killed." She says as she leaves the room not wanting to have that conversation.
Keith sighs and turns over in his bed, closing his eyes. It's not as easy as she thinks it is, Cole would hit me for doing nothing.
.................................
Friday morning rolls by and for once it's quiet in the Kogane house.
Keith's phone starts to ring loudly, causing Keith to wake up abruptly. He sits up and grabs his phone. The stupid alarm is so loud. He looks at the time it reads 8:30 and sighs. He gets out of bed, grabs his clothes for the day, and heads to his bathroom to turn the shower on. He takes a quick shower and then gets dressed. He makes sure his bruises and cuts are not noticeable to anyone, even putting his bangs in front of one eye to hide a bruise. No one will notice... No one ever looks.
Keith's phone rings again but this time it isn't the alarm, it's a text from Shiro; Keith's best friend.
Shiro: "Hey where are you?"
Keith: "I'm on my way."
He grabs his jacket and his backpack and heads outside to meet Shiro. As Keith gets in the car Shiro asks, "You're late, are you ok?" Keith nods his head and buckles up. "I'm fine, Cole went to work early today." He looks out the window watching as they drive away from his house.
The drive was quiet but as always Shiro is still worried about Keith. "Keith, you don't look fine. You know you can talk to me, right?" Keith ignores Shiro not wanting to talk about yesterday or anything for that matter. Shiro happens to glance over at Keith and sees a bruise on his cheek, it's a faint bruise only noticeable if looking for it. "That's new...." Shiro points out the bruise to Keith. Keith turns his head away from Shiro. "I'm fine, just drive." Shiro sighs and decides it's best not to ask any more questions.
Asking too many questions can anger Keith. Shiro has learned the hard way not to ask too many questions, Keith is got a bad temper that shouldn't be tested.
They finally arrive at school after a long and quiet drive. "I'll see you after school." Shiro walks off to go meet with what Keith calls his 'jock' friends. Keith doesn't have any other friends and at the moment doesn't plan on making any friends either. Shiro is his only friend and he wants to keep it that way.
He heads to his homeroom class and sits down, pulls out his notebook and begins to doodle in it. The bell rings and soon the rest of the class shows up, along with the teacher. Mrs. Parker starts to write on the whiteboard, she then turns around towards the class. "Alright, class get your homework out, I'm coming around to collect it." She walks around the classroom collecting the homework from the students, some had it and others didn't. Some didn't even have it completed.
She walks up to Keith and looks at him. "Mr. Kogane where is your homework?" Keith looks away from her and keeps his head down. "I don't have it." She keeps standing there looking at him, "Why is that?" Keith sighs and rolls his eyes, though she can't see that he rolled his eyes. "Because I didn't do it, obviously." He says back with a snarky attitude.
Mrs. Parker sighs and shakes her head. "Keith you can't keep doing this you're failing my class, come see me after class so we can talk about this." Keith sighs and nods his head. Well isn't this just great, one more thing I have to worry about. There is no way I'm failing her class, I only missed a few assignments and a quiz.
After that conversation class goes by as normal, Keith tries his best to pay attention but is struggling a bit. The bell rings to dismiss the students to their next class. Keith grabs his bag and heads to the front of the classroom to speak to Mrs. Parker. "Can we make this quick, I don't want to be late for my next class." Mrs. Parker looks at him and motions for him to sit down. "You won't be late I'll write you a pass, so tell me what's going on? You went from having an A to an F. I know you are smarter than this." Keith sighs and looks away from her, he even slouches down in his chair. "Sorry, I'll fix it. I've been busy lately." She nods her head and goes to grading papers, "Alright, I want to see your grade go up or I'll have to call home." Keith looks up at her quickly as soon as she said she'll have to call home. She's only going to make things worse if she calls home, my dad will kill me for getting a call from the school. She didn't notice how he reacted because she was so focused on writing out his pass.
She hands him a pass and he headed to his next class in silence, lost in thought.
..................................
*Lunch Time*
Keith goes outside for lunch and looks around for Shiro. He is exactly where he thought he would be, with his 'jock' friends. A sigh leaves his mouth as he decides it's best not to go over there unless he wants to get pushed around. I hate them! They aren't even good friends to him, they don't care about anyone but themselves... I'll talk to him later. He goes behind the bleachers where he normally hides from everyone and sits down. He grabs his notebook and doodles in it again. A few minutes pass and Shiro shows up, "Hey dude, did you eat?" Keith looks up from his notebook, "You know the answer to that." Shiro sighs and sits down next to him, "Keith..." Keith interrupts him before he can even finish, "I'm not hungry, so drop it." Shiro looks at Keith and narrows his eyes. "There is no way you are not hungry." Keith sighs and looks back down at his notebook. "Shiro, I'm fine. Now stop acting like you're my mom. I'm not hungry ok." As if it was on cue, Keith's stomach growls completely disregarding everything he just said.
Shiro smirks at Keith, "Your stomach says otherwise, you know you can just ask me for food right?" He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a sandwich, trying to hand the sandwich over to Keith. Keith looks at the sandwich. If I ask for food every day he will just get annoyed with me, I'm fine I don't need his help. I've been ok for this long. "Shiro I can't take your sandwich." Shiro smiles at Keith and puts the sandwich on top of Keith's notebook. "Of course, you can. I already ate anyways so just eat it." Keith nods his head and starts to eat the sandwich. Shiro smiles looking at Keith and thinks to himself, I'm glad he's eating something. "Hey we should hang out tomorrow, are you busy?" Keith looks at him and slightly tilts his head, "Don't you have football practice?" Shiro shrugs his shoulders a bit, "Their never going to let a kid with a robotic arm actually play. It's considered unfair to everyone else. So why even go to practice, I can skip a day I don't care."
Shiro lost his arm to cancer when he was younger. Surprisingly they still let him on the football team even though he's missing an arm... Well technically missing an arm, he was able to get into a program when he was younger and they gave him a robotic arm. He's hardly ever on the field though, but he's never upset about that. The school basically uses him as the diversity card, to show that they let everyone no matter the difference do anything. Though if you actually go to the school you know that's a lie. Shiro always has a positive attitude though, or at least it seems that way.
Keith nods his head at Shiro. "Uh ok... I don't think I'm busy so yeah. Where are we hanging out?" Shiro thinks for a second. "At my house." Shiro packs up his backpack. "I'll pick you up at 4." Keith starts to pack up as well. "Wait, it's just going to be us right like there won't be any of your football friends?" Shiro smirks and stands up to leave. "No there won't be any of my football friends." He leaves to head to class.
Keith gets up and starts to head to his next class. At least those idiots won't be there.
...................................................
The last bell of the day rings and Keith heads straight to the front of the school. He leans up against the building waiting on Shiro to show up so he can be taken home.
A group of guys walk over to Keith and push him to the ground. "Hey Druggy!" They laugh at him as he falls to the ground scuffing up his hands. "Look how weak he is!" One yells out and points at Keith. They keep laughing and calling him names like a bunch of elementary school kids. Keith's temper starts to rise the more and more they laugh at him. He balls up his fist ready to fight. " My girlfriend is stronger than you, ya' fag!" The guy in the center yells out as he punches Keith in the face. Keith quickly gets up and punches him in the stomach. The guy curls over and Keith Knees him in the face. The other guys grab Keith to hold him back.
Shiro walks up angry and ready to fight. "Hey! Let him go!" The boys recognize who Shiro is and let Keith go, soon after they run off. "You're going to pay for this, dipshit!" The guy that Keith punched, says as he runs off too. Shiro looks at Keith to see if he is ok acting like a mother looking after her child. "Keith, you ok?" Keith grabs his backpack, "Yeah I'm fine. I can take care of myself just fine." He heads towards Shiro's car, "Come on let's go." Shiro sighs and follows Keith. "I know you can take care of yourself, but still..."
They drive off to Keith's house. Shiro hates dropping Keith off at his house because he knows what happens there. Shiro is the only person that Keith trusts enough to have told him about the abuse. He never told in depth about what happens at home, but Shiro knows that Keith gets beat almost on a daily. Shiro took the long way to Keith's house so that he could have some peace before he gets there.
Once they get to Keith's house he gets out of the car and heads toward the house. "See you tomorrow, Shiro." Shiro waves at him and looks slightly concerned, "Don't die on me, please." Keith walks up to the door of his house and turns to look at Shiro. "No promises." He turns back around and goes inside the house. Shiro drives away, not happy with his response.
The inside of the house is a disaster, there are beer and whiskey bottles all over the place, dirty dishes laying everywhere, and all over the kitchen counters. There is barely any room to put anything else on the table. Keith starts to clean up a little bit, just enough to see the kitchen counters and the table. Once he is done he grabs his backpack and heads to his room. He shuts the door and locks it so that Cole can't come in. Keith throws his bag on his bed and takes his shoes off by the door. He jumps on his bed and sighs a sigh of relaxation. He glances over, looking at his bag. I need to do my homework...... I'm just not in the mood. The more and more he stares at it the more and more he realizes how much he needs to get done. He sighs and sits up on his bed. He grabs his bag and pulls out all the homework he has. I have to make up so much... ugh. He works for a couple of hours and then decides to take a break by laying across his bed and looking up at the ceiling.
After a few minutes, the relaxing silence is interrupted by a bottle breaking downstairs making Keith jump up from his bed. "Keith! Get your ass down here!" Cole yells from downstairs. Without hesitation, Keith gets up and runs downstairs. "Yes?" Keith looks up at Cole. Cole slaps Keith across the face. "Yes, what?" Cole scowls at Keith. Keith keeps his head down, and his hair covers his face. "Yes, sir?" Cole has so much hatred towards Keith, so much hatred without reason or at least that's what Keith knows. He was never given a solid reason for Cole's actions and he doesn't think he ever will. Cole grabs Keith's head and forces him to look at the broken glass on the floor. "Clean this fucking mess up, and do it right." Cole pushes Keith down into the glass shards. "Ah..." he lands on a glass shard and cuts open his hand. His hand starts to bleed heavily, dripping down his arm. Cole glares at Keith, "You idiot, you better not get blood on my floor." Once Cole has left the room Keith quickly runs up to his room to take care of his hand. Keith goes to his bathroom and pulls out the glass shard over the sink. More and more blood is coming out, if Keith wasn't used to seeing blood he would have definitely fainted by now. He grabs some napkins and puts pressure on the wound to stop it from bleeding as much as he could. Keith finds the first aid kit that he keeps under the sink and, a needle and thread. He holds the needle to his wounded hand, his hand starts to shake a bit. Calm down you can do this... you just have to close it up. Steady hand...steady hand. Keith wipes the tears from his eyes and begins to stitch up his hand. Once he has finished stitching up his hand he wraps it up in a bandage and then goes back to cleaning up the broken glass. He lets out an annoyed sigh once he realizes Shiro is going to ask about his hand later. After the glass is all cleaned up, he heads to his room and climbs into bed. At least tomorrow should be better... He drifts off to sleep, dreaming of nothing.