The Boy Next Door

Walking A Tightrope With You

After five minutes of watching Pidge stare at her cup of ice cream and watch it melt, Keith sighed and crossed his arms, slumping back in his chair. She had asked him to get her a cup ice cream from Vrepit Sal's place before they went dress shopping, but she hadn't even touched it. He couldn't understand why she would ask for ice cream and not eat it.

After watching her stare at her ice cream for two more minutes, he finally cleared his throat, attempting to catch the girl's attention. Pidge snapped out of her thoughts and pursed her lips, looking down at Keith with a perplexed expression. "What?"

"Are you just going to watch your ice cream melt or are you going to keep staring into space again?"

Pide rolled her eyes. "It isn't even melting yet, Keith."

"It sure looks like it is to me," Keith said, gesturing towards the melting ice cream, which was pooling on the table around the base of the cup. "If I knew you were going to stare and wait for it to turn into milk then I would've gotten you a baby bottle."

Pidge grabbed the spoon with her right hand and scooped up a bit of ice cream, sticking it in her mouth without breaking eye contact Keith. "Happy now?" She asked through bites, Keith shuddering.

"Don't do that."

She only smirked and took a huge spoonful of ice cream, taking a bite and proceeding to stick her face in Keith's own, smacking her lips. Keith only looked at her in disgust before pushing her head out of the way, Pidge chuckling as she was put back in her seat.

"You're horrible, you know that?"

"I learned from the best." She winked at him, causing Keith to pout and turn away, a light blush dusting his cheeks. "Oh come on, I'm joking! Don't get over sensitive on me now, I need you to get my mind off of everything that's been going on."

Keith stopped pouting and twisted his body around to face her again, a concerned expression replacing his blush. "Is he getting to you again?"

Pidge sighed, running a hand through her hair as she played with some of the ice cream that was still left in her cup. "Yes? No? Maybe? It's complicated," she said frustratedly.

"What's so complicated about it?"

"Everything!" Pidge yelled, dropping her spoon and tugging at the ends of her hair harshly. A few heads turned their way before looking away as Keith sighed, making it clear that he wasn't in the mood to have them eavesdrop. Pidge took a deep breath in, closing her eyes and letting her head fall onto her knuckles as she let her breath out. "Lotor is a really confusing person and I honestly don't know what to expect at this point, Keith. I'm so confused!"

"Why are you so confused? It's Lotor, Pidge. The guy is twisted–"

"But what if he isn't?" Pidge asked, a sad frown on her face. "These past few months have shown me that even if Lotor is doing what he's doing, he's still a human. Keith, when I went to his house I couldn't stand it. I can't imagine how Lotor managed to live there for his entire childhood. He was verbally abused and I'm sure that if Zarkon could walk, he would've been physically abused too."

Keith frowned. "So you're feeling sorry for the villain now?"

"Is he really the villain?" Pidge retorted, her sad expression turning angry within a matter of seconds. "To me, it seems like Lotor is the victim of the villain. He's trying to fix things, but he's going about them in the wrong way and I honestly feel so torn about this, Keith. What if he's not our main villain? It's like the stories where the bad guys aren't the bad guys, like that show with the fire bending guy that Hunk showed us a while back. He tried to do what he thought was good, even though it was bad!"