Borderline

chapter seven.

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One and a half movement passed of secretly visiting Keith, and all the time the thought of his lips, barely considered a kiss on my wrist, poked at my sanity. My face was heated nonstop, and everybody kept thinking I was getting sick again. I had to come up with an even more flimsy pretext as to why I was constantly blushing, which ultimately came to:

"Oh, I just... met this really cute girl the other quintant, and she just did a very nice thing to me that's got me kinda flustered..."

"I KNEW IT!" Allura called out so suddenly and loudly that the whole table jumped. Hunk looked like he had just had his soul knocked out of him. My sister pointed at me, leaning over the long table and behaving in such a different way than her usual conduct that it somehow made the whole planet hold it's breath. "I knew that there was a reason for your sudden "skills in hide and seek"!" She made exaggerated quote signs around the last words, a wide grin displayed on her face. Her blue eyes twinkled - no, sparkled, in excitement. Like literally sparkled. Was that a normal thing?

"A girl, huh?" Pidge teased, nudging me in the side, making me flinch. "It's about time someone jumped for you, you lonely nincompoop."

I frowned down at her. "Wow, is it really that surprising that I finally get someone to like me?"

"Yeah", everybody said in unison.

Welp, couldn't argue with that, then.

"So she's the reason you've miraculously turned good at hide and seek?" Allura goaded, her finger still up my face, her body leaning over the table so much that she was almost lying on it. "Just admit it, you've been secretly seeing her, having the hide and seek as an excuse, right? Now it all makes so much sense!" She flicked her own head, in a duh-kind of way.

I tried not to make a face, already regretting what I had said, hating where this was hastily going.

"Right...?"

Allura squealed, making Hunk's soul - that he seemed to begin to get back - fly right out of the castle doors again. Whoosh, his soul went. "I knew it I knew it I KNEW IT!"

"Princess...", Hunk panted, probably terrified of my sister's behavior. His hand rested on top of his heart. "Please just... take a moment to calm down, you know..."

"What is she like? What's her name? Will we get to meet her? I promise, I won't tell mother and father of this discovery. Your love life is safe with us." She made thumbs up enthusiastically, baring her teeth in a wide smile. Hunk smiled at me helplessly, and Pidge pointed the middle finger at me with a bigger grin from beside me.

I gulped, screaming mentally. If only, I thought bitterly. If only my confession about seeing Keith could be this easy. If only Keith were that innocent girl.

When I didn't say anything, Allura snapped her fingers in front of me, trying to gain my attention. I flinched again.

"Name?" she repeated, turning very passioned about the subject, but also very urgent to get the answers out of me.

I hoped that I was only imagining the sweat running down my back, making my tunic stick to my skin uncomfortably. I pulled the collar of my vest away from my throat a couple of inches, only to let it slap back.

"Um... She...Ehm... Her name is... Nyma! Yeah, Nyma, that's her name!" Was my face sweating? It was sweating, wasn't it?

The delight on Allura's face ran off her face in a heartbeat, maybe even faster than that. The Altean trio were all looking at me now.

"Nyma?" she muttered, or more like spitting it out. She leaned back again, her hands firmly gripping the edge of the table. "That Nyma?"

"We talked it out!" I reassured quickly, trying to turn the judging stares on me to something good. "She explained throughly why she played me on the way she did the first time we met. I now understand her previous actions, and I'm mature enough to forgive her. So then we started talking from there, and... yeah..." I scratched the nape of my neck, feeling something warm and wet tickle my fingers, and I brought down my hand and discreetly wiped the sweat off on my tigh under the dining table.