Violet Nights

Chapter 10

Keith might have been mistaken when he caught some dude in the halls checking him out. It was definitely his imagination, right? Why would someone check /him/ of all people out? As far as Keith knew, he was the only other gay guy in the school. Sure, there were plenty of lesbians and people who acted like they were gay--mostly just to make fun of gay people, but there were hardly any dudes who liked other dudes. Especially, openly.

Keith's face was hidden behind his locker door when he glanced over seeing someone looking at him. But to his surprise, they weren't looking at him in a negative way, but an intrigued way. He thought for a moment about looking back, but his nerves told him that If he did, it would end up badly. 

Not today, anxiety, he told himself. He eyes shifted in the boy's general direction and recognized him almost immediately. He'd seen him in a lot of his classes before. He wasn't popular, yet not exactly a loner either. Keith would have described him as neutral, much like Hunk and Pidge.  

He swallowed hard as the boy caught his stare and began heading in his direction. The footsteps, which would have sounded barely audible at all, appeared as large tremors in Keith's mind. He knew he shouldn't have looked back. If he hadn't and just pretended like he didn't notice him staring, this wouldn't be happening. What if he was going to tell him off for staring at him? It had happened before with someone Keith thought was hot before. They turned out to be straight--and homophobic. Needless to say, he got in a fight with them over it and was put in detention for a week despite not being the one who started the fight. High school really showed no mercy.

"Hey." The other male's voice interrupted Keith's thoughts suddenly. It only seemed like a minute ago, he'd been standing 10 feet away and now he was but a few inches into his perimeter. Keith could feel his hands shaking nervously as he looked up. 

"Oh. Hi." he replied, trying to come off as calm as he could. Man, this guy was really hot. How could anyone stay calm around him??

"Your name's Keith, right?" he asked, leaning against the locker next to Keith's, arms folded and a gentle smile across his cheeks. Keith nodded.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Top of the class, quiet, always focused, really cute." 

Keith could feel a small blush creep across his cheeks as he realized that he was being complimented by none other than a really hot dude. What was his name? Why couldn't he remember his name? He could barely remember his own name for a short few seconds.

"I'm Rolo, by the way." the boy said, holding his hand out. 

/Rolo! That's his name!/ Keith exclaimed in his head, mentally beating himself up for it. 

"I know." he said dumbly. "We have class together."

Rolo chuckled and took Keith's hand, shaking it. Keith was immediately drawn by how warm his hands were. They felt like they'd been sitting in a hot tub for an hour. Keith's hands were the exact opposite, feeling mostly like ice. Shiro teased him about it, telling him he was a walking dead person. 

"Hey, so, " Rolo began again, "I think you're really cute and all so you wanna hang out some more?" he asked, a smirk on his face. A soft, yet assured smirk. It almost made feel faint from how attractive it looked. That's when he realized that he was more like a 12 year old fangirl than an 18 year old emo boy. 

"I know a cool restaurant we can go out to nearby." he suggested, leaning away from the locker now as the habitant of it came into his presence. Keith noticed that he was still holding his hand and swallowed gently.

"Uhm...yeah..sure." What was he doing? The last time he'd gone out with a guy, he ended up going home with him and giving him a blowjob. Not to mention that when he broke up with him, the guy never got over it and he now has a crazy stalker on his ass. 

"Great!" Rolo smiled, letting go of Keith's hand to take a piece of paper from his pocket and jot his number onto it. "Here. You can text me. How's tomorrow?" 

"Great." Keith said awkwardly, trying his best to pull a smile onto his face. 

"Great. See ya" 

Keith watched for a moment as Rolo disappeared around the corner before looking down at the number and putting it into his phone. He was just asked out on a date? And he accepted? And someone like Rolo asked him out? How was this even possible? No, Keith didn't know the feeling of being in love. He had never loved anyone. He didn't even know what empathy was. When people got hurt, he showed no emotion to their pain at all. Yeah, he felt bad for them, but sympathy could only go so far. You can feel bad for someone without actually feeling what they feel. Maybe that was what was wrong with Keith. He didn't grow up around good people. His childhood was spent in an orphanage where he was the smallest and the smallest had it the roughest. The only reason he was able to escape from that horrible place was because Shiro took him under his wing like his savior and paid for his education. Shiro was the only  person that Keith could hold onto. He hadn't left him and he never would. Because he believed in him unlike everyone else. Maybe that was why Keith was alive now. He'd thought about suicide a good bit, but Shiro was the reason he never succeeded at it. He could never repay everything Shiro had done for him by killing himself. It was selfish. And Shiro deserved no more pain in his life. Keith knew that.

And that's why he was still alive.