Frosty Flames and Burning Ice|Klance Soulmate/Fantasy AU

(8) Understand

here's  another song rec probably totally unrelated to the chapter below (smh) tbh i shd stop uploading songs and just ask yall to watch the entire two seasons of Super Vocal kdsljfldsk also yes it's opera again

  Keith was small, but he was fast. By the time Lance processed what had just happened, the smaller boy had already vanished from his sight.

  "So what if you're taller if you're still slower than him? You may be able to catch up with him physically, but what does it matter if you still react much slower? Nothing has changed, nothing ever will, you'll always be slower. You'll always be his shadow. He's the flame and he burns bright. You're nothing compared to him," whispered the voice in his head. 

  Suddenly, Lance felt a wave of apathy and cold hatred for the other boy. It felt as though there were cold fingers on the back of his neck, threatening to paralyse him by freezing his spine. Lance shivered as the sensation passed. What was that? he thought. The last time he had felt such a lack of emotion was the last time he played against Keith in a Basketball match in elementary school, when Keith had elbowed him in the process of trying to prevent Lance from getting the ball. Keith hadn't meant to hurt him, but Lance had landed hard on his backside, causing him to be made fun of by other classmates, greatly damaging his pride.

   It was after his confusion had passed when Lance's conscience finally kicked in, like a cold slap to the face. Sure, it seemed like Keith had overreacted, but... Had he said something wrong? Okay, well, obviously he had, seeing the boy's reaction, but which was the exact part of what he had said had made him react that way? The part about him being taller? The part about Keith being a loner? Or the part about cartoon characters? Or was it the scowl? Neither of these seemed particularly hurtful to Lance, they were all just the regular insults, weren't they?

 You wouldn't know, would you? You know nothing about what would of wouldn't hurt him. The voice in his head spoke again. That was when it dawned on Lance that he knew nothing about Keith. He had thought that he and Keith were sort of friends, sort of rivals. But they were never friends, were they? Lance had never realised that their only interactions were Basketball matches and other competitions against each other on different things. But they knew nothing about each other. Keith probably just thinks I'm a childish jerk, he probably ran away because he doesn't want to deal with me again. What does he know about me? He doesn't know how hard I've worked for everything just for him to outshine me. I'm not like others, I've never been in the spotlight, and he doesn't understand anything about me. Lance thought angrily, any empathy or guilt for Keith washed away once again by the cold relationship he had with Keith. 

*~*~*~

  Black spots grew before Keith's eyes as his vision blurred from the tears in his eyes. You are weak, said a honeyed voice in his head, you can't even take a tiny insult. Keith found that he had run to the edge of the exhibit, where there were, conveniently, benches. Slowly, with heaving breaths, Keith sat down. "I am a loner. I only have cartoon characters for company. Lance is right. I am alone..." he whispered to himself, his breath racked with sobs. Keith knew he was overreacting, but what did it matter? Lance was right about him.

  Lance, he thought bitterly, his mind running through all the times the browned haired boy had provoked him since young. He had never liked Keith, he had never stopped to talk to him, when he wasn't trying to achieve more than Keith in something, he was glaring at Keith for "one-upping" him. Lance had never bothered to understand the dark times Keith had gone through, never bothered to understand the amount of hard work Keith had to put in for everything, yet he still had the nerve to taunt Keith for everything. Keith heaved a ragged sigh.

  Even though they had each, for a long time, felt like they needed to be understood, neither of the boys realised that they had never bothered to be the one to step back and try to understand first.

pls feel free to leave a comment if u hv any tips for me on how to write better uwu