Flower Boy - Klance | completed |

Ch. Sixteen

Ch. Sixteen

The instant Keith had bolted, slamming the door behind him with a hand pressed to his mouth, Sebastián knew someone had to follow. Even if Chris had been telling the truth, even if... Even if it had all been faked - every smile, every kind word - even if it was all pretend because he'd felt bad for them, it was still Keith, and Sebastián still cared for the kid, deep down.

He and Natalia must've had the same thought, because the next thing he knew they were dashing after their friend faster than he, himself, had left, swearing and screaming his name when they hadn't even been bothered to pull the door shut behind them.

Sebastián could still see Keith ahead of them; the crisp, 2:00am air doing nothing to alleviate the anxiety he could feel already bubbling in his chest. "Keith!"

Natalia, surprisingly, reached him first, and she managed to snatch his wrist, gently but sternly forcing him to a stop. Keith jerked away from her, but once he noticed Sebastián, he made no move to run - though his shoulders remained tensed like a scared, cornered animal.

"Keith," Sebastián said, because he had absolutely no idea what else he could possibly say in a situation like this. "Are you okay?"

Keith Kogane looked like he had no intentions of answering Sebastián's question, which the younger boy couldn't help but respect. Certainly, if he'd been in Keith's shoes, he would have probably done the same thing. His friend must've seen something flash in his eyes that wasn't actually there, because he took another two steps back, furiously wiping the tears that stained his cheeks.

"Keith, hey-" Natalia urged, reaching for him again. "Come on, let's go back inside and we can hear your side of the story and just talk like reasonable-"

"Why would you want to do that?" Poor Keith looked almost on the verge of hysterics, and Sebastián felt the sudden urge to hug him. "You heard what he said. It's all fake, right? Why would you want to hear my side and make a judgment if we were never even friends in the first place."

It looked like something was flashing through his mind, seemingly over and over again, judging by the way his eyes would slightly unfocus in one moment before snapping back in the next.

"Keith, you know that's not-"

"And what if it is!?" Keith choked out, backing up another four or five steps before swiping across his cheeks with the back of his hand. "What if he was telling the truth! What if, this whole time, I had never cared about you in the first place!"

Sebastián didn't know what to think; he had no idea what angle Keith was playing at and, for a second, he actually entertained the possibility in his mind. The Korean boy must've seen it, he must have, because in that same second what remained of his expression crumbled, and he let out a short, choked sob in the middle of the street.

"Maybe you were like that before," Natalia was crying, too, but she didn't bother to wipe at her face. "But you're not like that now. I know you aren't. We're your family, Keith. We can-"

"You're not my family." Keith wanted to die. He wanted to punch himself in the face, and continue doing so until he was actually dead and buried, never to be seen again, because he just couldn't shut his fucking mouth. But, even so, those words persisted, echoing in the back of his mind.

"Never underestimate those you once considered an ally."

"You're just a little kid, who pushes too far and doesn't know when to stop." He looked at Natalia, whose breath seemed to be frozen in her lungs. He needed to run. He needed to get away before they could hurt him anymore. And the only way to do that, Keith assumed, was to hurt them first.