Mind Over Matter | KLANCE

THREE: Bottom of The Deep Blue Sea

Something was bothering Keith, even during his REM sleep – the first he's had in a while. An indescribable pain was surging throughout his body, the asleep boy unsure of where it was even coming from. Throughout the abstract black-and-white dream he was having, the constant agony was slowly waking him up, Keith's conscience getting turned on once the dream's image faded out to pitch black.

A series of incomprehensible moans and obscenities were flowing out of the tired throat of his, vision blurry from not getting enough sleep: something he has gotten used to, yet it stilled annoyed him to no end. "These fucking eye boogers..." He meant to say, but the words came out as if he had a smoker's vocal cords, sounding more and more like gibberish with each syllable. That pain was unrelenting, but now he could somewhat see the perpetrator throughout his crusted-over eyelids. The periodic table mug was broken apart, jeans still soaked from the tea he spilled earlier, and elements from Hydrogen to Radium were jabbing into his inflamed, bleeding feet.

"Fuck my life."

--

Paraíso was booming with college students as soon as the delicatessen opened for the day, stacks of books, laptops, and blankets flooding into the shop as they prepared for the week's upcoming midterms. Keith was also one of these people, but instead of sitting in the customers' area, he was behind the counter, focusing on Lance's ridiculously good makeup covering the N-shaped burns on his wrist instead of the Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic unit in his textbook. The worrisome and unconscious revelation in Lance's speech hours back seemed to linger in his mind more than the terms he should be remembering for his midterm in a day, the rest of his thoughts relating back to the ice pack he managed to fit in Lance's huge slippers to ease the throbbing pain in his foot.

Each time the deli slicer was pushed down, he flinched, thinking about how Lance could injure himself even worse than he possibly did in the past. His impulsive and curious nature already made him believe that Lance has committed some grave act on himself at least once, even if the boy himself never mentioned it: not once.

"So, are you gonna keep staring, or are you doing some psych evaluation on me to practice for your exam?" Lance pointed the sharp knife in Keith's direction, making the staring boy jolt up from his slumping position. "Cram. Now. Or else, you'll be the meat in these people's sandwiches. I'm pretty sure some of these dead-eyed sickos wouldn't mind being a cannibal if it gave them enough energy to study."

"Sounds like a fair deal... if I die, then I won't have to take this dreadful midterm. Hell, it'd probably be a far less gruesome death via steak knife than failing the test." Keith blurted out monotonously, instantly regretting his dark humor when he remembered how Lance was suicidal – at least, Keith was convinced he was from that suspicious conversation at 12:23 am sharp on a Sunday morning. "I-I didn't mean that, you know? Death isn't cool to joke about.... Y'know? It's a serious manner."

Lance squinted at him, deli slicer dangerously close to the turkey breast his free hand steadied. It was clearly an awkward exchange, the usually bubbly boy leaving the mess of a human named Keith to fret over his careless mistake. "Dude, you're fine. I'm pretty sure we all joke about dying nowadays. Pidge once Googled how she could pass out in a final exam so that nobody, including herself, would have to take it. Didn't work out too well."

"I... I see."

"As Avril Lavigne would say, 'why do you have to go and make things so complicated?' Don't worry."

Clearly, if the kid was in good enough spirits to joke and reference a cheesy song ironically at one in the afternoon, he was not aware of how he revealed his fragile, broken soul to the brunt of the gag. "Okay, I'm going back to studying, please don't quote High School Musical or anything else meme-related." Keith lied right through his teeth, resuming his creeping on the sweating worker adjacent to him. Even if it seemed that Lance had a nice life, something has been off within the family the second he met them all, a confusing tension rooting all of them in a problem larger than he could fathom. Maybe it was even the reason for the perfectly burned N on his wrists, or why Lance admitted he wanted to disappear. It was an enigma to the boy who silently observed his friend like a test object, scrutinizing each move he made and determining how it somehow related back to the depression Keith believed he possessed.