Stealing the World

Chapter Six: Dusty Gum

AUTHORS NOTE
Hi!!!!!!!
Thank you for getting it this far in my very poorly written fanfic!!!!! Just so you know, from now on, when I want to put a very small author's note in the actual story, like breaking the fourth wall, I will be using ** just to get your attention. For example,
Bewfbyeyuwufbyi **Author's note**jncryufuhyryruihg
If that makes any sense. Also, the gibberish is just the story, if it didn't make sense to you.
So yeah, that was just to let you know. Thank you for reading my very bad story!!!!

"How much longer do we have to do this?" Lance groaned.
"It's literally been twelve minutes," Keith deadpanned.
Lance sighed as another peice of gum he had been scraping off fell into the bucket. It felt like they had been working forever. Having Keith there didn't make it much better. Of course, it seemed like the ravenette didn't even care about the situation. Lance, on the other hand, was devestated. Soing nasty chores like scraping gum off of tables didn't exactly make Lance the happiest person ever. He absoloutely HATED chores. But he tended to clean so thoroughly that his family often tried to pin any extra cleaning on him.
There was a strange silence between the two boys as they cleaned. Lance didn't like it. "So," he began, getting a glance of acknowlegement from Keith. "How's your life been?" He asked. As soon as he said it, he instantly regretted it. He knew that Keith had been orphaned from  a young age, and had gone from foster home to foster home. To his surprise, Keith didn't totally lose his marbles and pelt Lance with filthy gum. Instead, thhe pale boy just sighed. "Well, you knoow. I work at the coffee shop, which you already knew," Lance was surprised Keith had acknowleged "The Encounter", as Lance refered to it, at the coffee shop. He didn't think much about it anymore. "And you know I go to college here." Lance glanced at Keith. He noticed the ravenette was turning slightly pale, and small beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. His expression showed slight annoyance from the awkwardness of his last words.
Is he nervous?  Lance thought to himself. Keith had no reason to be. Lance was just a boy from Cuba. Not some California dude like Lotor Daibazaal, a boy who went to there college. ** Haha like my season six episode two reference??** "How 'bout 'chu?" Keith muttered. Lance assumed he had gotten tired of potentially embarrassing himself. Honestly, Keith being flustered didn't annoy Lance. He thought it was cute. .. In like, a baby puppy sort of way. "Well, you know, I've got a pretty big family... There's my mom, my brother Marco, my brother Luis, my sister Veronica, my abuela, my aunt stays at our house, my cousins..." Lance realized it probably seemed like he was rambling, so he quickly cut himself off. He looked over to Keith, expecting an annoyed expression on his face. Surprisingly, the pale boy was just looking at him expectantly, as if encouraging him to go on. "They live by Veradero Beach back in Cuba, so I don't see them a lot." Lance saw Keith just nod slowly, as if he didn't quite know how to respond. Of course I had to say something like that. How do you even respond to that!
Lance looked at the clock. It was only four twenty-three. They were supposed to do this until five o'clock. It had only been twenty-three minutes, yet it felt like ages. He moved to a different desk, and was dismayed to see the majority of the bottom of the desk was covered in old gum. Suddenly, the Cuban boy was enlightened by an idea. He slowly grinned. "Hey, Kogane!" He called out to the other boy. "Bet you can't clear out ten desks in five minutes!" Keith glared at Lance. "You're on!" The two boys scrambled to be the first to finish the race. Of course, in the end, Keith won, with ten desks in four minutes thirty-four seconds. Lance was annoyed with his failure. Keith always won. He was perfect, especially in everyone else's eyes. Lance was starting to get sick of it.
On the outside, Lance portrayed false infuriation at Keith's victory. On the inside, he wasn't feeling so playful. He was disappointed.
How come I can't do anything right? It's like Keith is always at the head, getting all the credit, without even trying. I'm always working so hard, just to try not to mess everything up, but it dosen't work. It never does. I don't get why, just for once, I can be a hero. I wanna make other people happy. Why does he get that privilege? He dosen't even want it. I don't even know what he wants! He never DOES anything out of free will. He just does what he's told, like some robot, and just sulks about it. I just don't understand. Why is he such a stupid mystery? Like some cryptid. That's funny. 'Cause Keith likes cryptids.
To keep up his fake-mad, playful act, Lance scraped a peice of gum off the bottom of the closest desk and threw it at Keith. The dark-haired boy whipped around, so fast he almost got whip-lash, and picked up his bucket and jumped halfway across the room at the clear spot in the front. It took Lance a second to realize what Keith was doing as he raced down between the rows of desks to where Lance was. As fast as he could, the tan boy spun around to try and run, but as soon as he took the first step, he tripped over the leg of desk and fell to the ground. Before he knew it, he felt it. Small, round balls of filthy gum all over him. Keith had dumped his bucket of gum onto Lance. He was about to scream, from fear that touching the gum would give him some sort of crazy disease, but he couldn't do that. Because, A., Keith would hear him scream like a girl, and that could not happen. And B., people in the building would think someone was being murdered. Lance rolled onto his back and caught Keith by surprise, pulling on his ankle and pulling him to the ground. The pale boy landed right beside him, almost on top of him, and he rolled over so he was facing Lance. "I'm so gonna get you back for this!" Keith yelled, well, as clearly as he could through gritted teeth. "Why not right now?" Lance challenged him. "Because, moron," Keith panted as he sat up. "We only have a little less than thirty minutes to get all this whole room clean!" Lance's hyper mood started to fade away when the reality sunk in that they had wasted almost ten minutes goofing off. He cursed in his mind. There was definitely a long way to go.