handsome dude from the train // klance

Chapter 18

Next Monday almost gave Lance a heart attack. He had been humming to himself, already grinning when he imagined what kind of messages Keith would come up with when the train had arrived. It was bound to be good, no matter whether he would actually thank him for the bright pink beanie or curse him out for it. Lance had long since accepted that every reaction Keith displayed made him smile like a fool.

When the train doors opened, he had been about to go to his usual place when he realized - Keith wasn't leaning back against the window. The head that wore the pink beanie turned towards the door and-

Keith was awake.

Lance wasn't sure why he had ever wanted Keith to be awake when he arrived, he suddenly felt like throwing up. He couldn't meet him. Not today. Oh gods, he wasn't prepared! What if Keith thought he was creepy? Or ugly? He wasn't ugly, but what if Keith thought so? He had skipped his face mask yesterday! He so wasn't prepared for this encounter.

Instead of heading towards his usual place, Lance feigned nonchalance and turned towards the left, away from Keith. He had his earbuds in so it didn't look like he was overly interested in his surroundings anyway. Hopefully that would throw Keith off. Keith had no way of knowing who exactly he was looking for, everything would be fine.

Once Lance had reached a free seat, he took out the stuff for his lab. He could use this opportunity to get a little extra studying in... or at least he could pretend to. He still felt way too nervous to actually focus on his material.

Turning up his music, Lance began to underline random stuff. Oh yeah, he was good at pretending to be busy. It was the only way he had survived most of his high school classes when he had been bored out of his mind. No problem, he could keep this up for ages.

It took him five minutes to lift his head and sneak a glance at Keith.

Keith was staring right back.

Fuck.

Lance immediately snapped his eyes back to his notes, then he realized how suspicious that must have appeared and looked up again. Keith was still staring at him with furrowed brows - oh god, he really was way too attractive for Lance to deal with - and Lance forced his face into a relaxed but questioning smile. It did exactly what it did to most strangers that were on the receiving end of it: he became instantly flustered and turned his head away, now frowning at the ground.

Good. Phew. Keith didn't know, he was safe.

Their eyes met again ten minutes later but Lance played it off as empty staring while being deep in thoughts. Keith didn't get up to talk to him.

It was only when he was already off the train and out of immediate danger that he began to regret it.