Garrison Academy

Chapter 7

Keith

The sun shined bright into Keith's eyes as he sat on a bench at the place where many people gathered days before. This day was one that Keith dreaded the most; the day his group decided it would be best to meet up and brainstorm ideas for what their roles were going to be with this blog thing they had to complete by the end of the school year. Though the project was boring to Keith, he understood it had to get done. So here he was.

Nobody else was present yet, granted Keith was pretty early. He may not be looking forward to the meeting, but it was his personal moral to be at appointments and meetings early to make sure he makes it on time. To kill time he took out his phone and plugged in headphones, jazz music flowing softly in his ears. Closing his eyes and feeling the breeze, Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" came through his earphones. For some reason that song was Keith's favorite, he could listen to that song for hours. Whenever it came on he felt a different kind of peace, something that he never really felt in life; not anywhere, not even around Shiro.

Once the song ended he opened his eyes to find someone looking at him from afar. It took him a while to realize that he was indeed who this person was staring at, and feeling slightly concerned on why he was being watched. It then made sense when the person walked towards him, as it turned out to be Pidge. He seemed to be everywhere Keith was; which didn't really bother him as much anymore as they had gotten somewhat closer since the day they sat together for the first time.

"Hey Pidge." Keith said lightly, taking his earbuds out of his ears and hitting the pause button on his phone. "You know, if people saw you staring they might think you're a stalker or something."

Pidge shrugged, plopping down next to Keith on the bench, swinging his legs like the kids at the orphanage used to do when their legs didn't touch the ground as they sat. "You looked so peaceful, seemed like it would be a shame to disturb you."

Though he didn't talk like a child, some aspects of Pidge reminded him of the orphanage children. Maybe it was because he was an abnormally short guy, or maybe it was the softness of his face. Whatever it was, Pidge was different. That's what Keith liked about him.

They chatted for a couple of minutes before Shiro walked up. Hunk followed soon after. It didn't take long for the other two to engage Pidge in conversation; he was easy to talk to, which was a fact that Keith figured out fast due to the times at lunch. He could talk about a lot of things, which is what eased Keith because he wasn't pressured to say much, if not anything at all.

It was hard for him to keep track of their conversation it changed topics so many times; it started with the simple conversation opener (a "Hey guys how are you today?" From Hunk) to a talk about beginners classes (which Shiro changed the topic to) and somehow it ended up to aliens. How they got to that subject Keith didn't even know.

"Where's Lance?" Pidge eventually brought up, snapping Keith back to the conversation between the three others. There was no answer from the peanut gallery, causing him to turn to Hunk. "You heard anything?"

"Why would I know?" Hunk shrugged, turning his attention to Keith, who looked confused as why the bigger boy turned to him. "You live with him, any ideas?"

All eyes were on Keith now, and once he realized that he tensed up a little bit. "I... I don't know?" He mentioned, shrugging as well. "He was gone when I left – heck he wasn't even there when I woke up."

"Right." Hunk recalled, shaking his head. "Lance has always been an early riser. Always has been. I really don't know how he does it."

The four shared a sigh. If he was there they could get the meeting over with, Keith thought, fidgeting with the sleeve of his red hoodie. This will make the meeting end later than expected; though Keith had nothing going on after he still didn't want to be here any later than he has to. He was pretty sure the others felt the same way. If he didn't have a positive image of Lance in the first place, this definitely wasn't helping his roommate in the long run. Lance was one person that Keith definitely did not want to give a try with; not ever.