Just Your Average College Life

Chapter 1

Thursday 10th October, 5pm

If there was one thing Lance hated it was when his friends downplayed themselves, they were amazing, awesome, incredible humans who deserved the world- so why couldn't they see that? Well, Hunk probably already knew that he deserved the world, no, the universe, because Lance told him at every available opportunity; Hunk did the dishes? He deserves the universe. Hunk tied his shoelaces? He deserves the universe. Hunk threw up into a toilet? He deserves the universe. Which is why their current conversation was really starting to annoy poor Lancey Lance.

“There is no way on Earth someone as incredible as Shay Balmerra would even date me, let alone be my soulmate!” The tired man argued pathetically. “She is literally worth the sun, and you guys have the nerve to say I have a chance?!?”

“Hunk, buddy, my main man, why don't you think you're good enough for Shay again?”

This conversation, though it had begun with mild teasing over his friend's crush, had escalated to the point where Hunk was pacing around his and Lance's dorm room, progressively becoming more and more nervous. Lance was sat on a beanbag chair, one he could see as a dark shade of blue but had no idea what the actual colour was, arguing that his best friend was clearly Shay's soulmate, and she was definitely happy with it. At first Pidge had made a few snarky comments from their perch on Lance's bed but now they were quietly scrolling through some website on their phone, if it wasn't Instagram then why would Lance care?

“Ugh, well she's super kind and funny and sweet and she has the beautiful smile imaginable….” Hunk described, a look of wonder decorating his face and a smile of his own creeping into his lips making his currently dark and blotchy soulmate mark morph into a dimple.

“You realise you just described yourself, right?” Asked Pidge from across the room, finally looking up from their phone with a deadpan expression lining their pale features.

“Oh… Did I really?” He laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck and blushing at the compliment. Lance guessed that was the effect your compliments had if you only hand them out once in a blue moon, or more like once every other blue moon in Pidge's case.

“Yeah, Buddy. You did. So just get over yourself and ask for her numb-” Lance was interrupted from what was sure to be a rousing pep talk by Pidge's phone blaring out the song 'heeeyyyy brothheeeerrr’ at such an intense and sudden volume that Pidge threw the small device into the air with a yelp before regaining their wits and answering the call.

Lance knew that 'hey brother’ was Pidge's ringtone for Matt, their older brother, despite Pidge having originally set it as a parody which went something like: 'heeeyyyy gooofballllll’. It had been changed by Matt in the middle of one of his and Pidge's 'hackathons’, where he tried to break the encryption to Pidge's phone whilst they tried to hack into a government satellite using said phone. Apparently in the middle of that technological war Matt had found the time to change his ringtone and Pidge had never changed it back'.

“What is it Matt?” The teen said, pinching the bridge of their nose while Matt said something inaudible from his side of the phone. “You have a shift? Wait, it's past 5pm how the Hell are you still hungover?!?! Oh right, you're you. What kind of idiot leaves their keys at home? You can't bring that up I was 7, you're 23. Fine, I'll grab your keys for you. Yes, you better thank me. Sure I'll bring him with me.”

“Sibling troubles?” Lance smiled as his sudden words made Pidge jump with yet another yelp before she shot the Cuban man a glare that would've been frightening had it come from someone over 4ft. Scratch that, it was actually incredibly terrifying.

“Ugh, Matt is hungover so when he left the apartment for his shift at the Café he left his keys behind since he couldn't think straight through his headache. And now he's asked me to fetch them, also Allura wants to see you.” They explained as they gathered up their numerous devices scattered across Lance's dishevelled bed, neither of them paying attention to Hunk who seemed much less nervous than before and was now on the phone with Shay, sat on his own bed.