Violet Nights

Chapter 25

Saturday, 2:00pm--

Even though Keith knew they were leaving soon, he still sat underneath the bright blue beach umbrella, on top of a grey towel with his sunglasses rested atop his damp raven locks. 

The sunlight was just too bright for him at the moment. You'd think it'd be at its peak around 12, but not here. It felt like being baked in an oven at full heat. Okay, maybe he was exaggerating a bit. It's hard being pale-complected and basking in the sun like a toasted marshmallow. 

Keith rested his head upon the pole of the umbrella sticking out of the sand, which mind you, was not comfortable. When he could sense a presence nearby, he opened his eyes and looked up at the figure beginning to kneel in front of him. Lance's blue eyes looked so much like the color of the ocean, especially being compared to it when it was in the premise of them. Keith tended to notice the smallest details about a person without even meaning to. Like the way Lance's smile caused little dimples to cave in in his tan cheeks. 

What was he thinking about again? 

"Hey, man." Lance greeted in a very unusually friendly manner, seating himself next to the much paler boy, knocking the sunglasses off of his face intentionally. Keith ignored it, not bothering to pick them up again since they were covered in moist sand, which felt like a gooey thick substance to him. 

"Oops" was his only response.

Keith noticed Lance had been watching the kids running around. He guessed it was good 'adult supervision.' The little rascals were destroying each other's sandcastles and filling their little buckets with water to make rifts and such in the sand. It really was amusing watching them.

"Hey," Lance began after a long pause. "I wanted to apologize for dragging you here with me. And for lying to my mom about us being friends. I'll probably regret saying this but..Sorry.."

"And you should be."

"Hey!" Keith was met with a rough, yet playful, nudge in the ribs by Lance's elbow. "You're not supposed to say that!"

"What am I supposed to say then?"

"I don't know! Something..something like, 'oh yeah, it's okay. I totally forgive you.'"

"But I don't." 

Lance scoffed, looking at Keith with a dramatic gape of his mouth and his hand pressed to his chest.

"Oh! I see! I'm hurt, Kogane. That's cruel. You are a cruel person!"

Keith couldn't help but laugh a little at that. Well..it was less of a laugh and more of a strange scoff slash chuckle, if that was even a thing. Before he knew it, the boy was in front of him instead of beside him. Maybe it was to better communicate; that was what Shiro had suggested to help with his anxiety--which actually made him more anxious, but whatever.

"Anyway, I have something else to tell you." Lance said with a slight grin on his caramel-tinted cheeks, which looked more blue from the sun shining through the fabric of the umbrella and that illuminating his face.

"If it's an insult, I don't want to hear it."

"No, I was just gonna say that you're--"

"My hair  looks fine. You're just mean." 

"Oh my gooood, Keith, would you just let me talk?!"

"Congrats. You called me by my first name."

Lance stayed silent an extra few seconds to see if Keith had anything else to say, his eyebrows knitted together in an annoyed way.

"Continue." Keith finally said, averting his eyes to the ground, whilst drawing a picture with a twig in the sand. 

Lance sighed before beginning.

"I was going  to say, you're not as bad as I thought you were. Maybe I was just being a jerk."

"Thanks."

"'Thanks?' That's all I get?'

"You didn't say much, so you're not getting much."

"Jeez, Kogane. As blunt as ever."

They were silent for an extra few moments before one of Lance's nephews--the youngest-- rushed over to Lance with a little white crab cupped in his two small hands. 

"Oh what do we have here?" Lance exclaimed as he leaned forward to look at it. 

"Mom's probably not gonna like it, but if you put it in a bucket, I'll buy a container for it." 

"Yay!" the little boy shouted as he waddled his way back to his siblings to show them what he'd caught. 

A/N: seems kind of an abrupt ending but I have a reasoning for it. Get excited for chapter 26!