Star-Crossed Rivals || [Keith x Reader]

The shed pt2

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"What is this?" Keith repeated, voice stern as he pulled on your shirt. You gritted your teeth, cursing yourself for forgetting this small detail you were trying to hide.

"Um, just a little bruising, nothing serious, really," you mumbled, almost whispering, even, as if too ashamed to lie to his face with confidence.

His eyes followed the collar of your shirt, and when pulling it down slightly revealed even more of those bruises, he suddenly decided to take your shirt off completely. You yelped in surprise, resisting it.

"Wait, I didn't allow you to do that!" you protested as you pulled down and got up from where you sat on his lap. You knew that he knew, anyway.

His brows furrowed as he looked you in the eyes, face almost as if he was trying to decipher who he was looking at. He must feel some kind of betrayal because you kept it a secret.

"(Y/N), where is this from? Did someone do this to you?"

You immediately shook your head, raising your hands as you rejected that idea. "No, no, don't worry." Biting your lip, you thought of how exactly to explain what this actually was without alarming him.

"It's, uh... I think this might be from training yesterday. Maybe the healing with quintessence was a little too much at once." You pressed at one of the bruises to demonstrate how harmless it was. "See? Doesn't even hurt. It'll go away soon."

Keith slowly shook his head with a sceptical expression. As he stood up, he slowly reached out his hand, waiting for you to either let him or reject his touch. You didn't move his hand away, so his fingers slowly pulled down on the fabric again as he took a look into the shirt and how far the bruising spread.

"I don't think this is a good idea." He retracted his hand again, before letting it drop to his side.

"What?"

"The whole... alchemy thing. It's clearly harming you."

You huffed in surprise. "What are you insinuating?" You crossed your arms over your chest, feeling a bit of anger bubble up inside of your chest. Maybe it was just nervousness, you told yourself. You didn't want to feel this way about him, especially since he hadn't said anything wrong. You were just really proud of your process so far and felt protective of this new thing you had for yourself.

You looked past him and out the window, where the sun was slowly nearing the horizon and tinting the sky and atmosphere in a more intense shade of yellow and orange.

"I'm saying your body is clearly rejecting this kind of thing. You still have your bayard and other skills; maybe you should focus on that for a while instead of harming yourself."

"No."

Keith opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it again after a moment of hesitation. He narrowed his eyes at you.