Criminal

Chapter 13

It was only a day or two before Keith was back in the dorms. This time, his wound had been sealed with a hard plaster that he couldn't tear through.

"That's good," Lance said cheerfully, "You can't hurt yourself that way!"

Keith responded with a withering glare that suddenly got very sad, and then he went back to his bed, stepping on Lance's foot on his way. "Do you remember anything from before you were sick?" he asked.

Lance frowned, pushing at a fuzzy feeling as his foot throbbed. "Um... I have a lot of siblings... I took the principal's car out for a joyride... yikes, I really was wild, isn't that weird, Hunk? I can't imagine doing anything like that now!"

"For sure," Hunk affirmed, "But, like, rules seemed horrible back then, huh? Just now we know they're there to keep us safe."

Keith let out a sound that was half a snort, half something Lance was relatively sure was a sob. "They really got you. You two sound like poster children in a 'say no to drugs' video."

Lance felt a small bubble of curiosity rise up in him. Why did Keith keep saying that someone had got them? But the pain in his foot disappeared and the fuzzy feeling returned, and Lance pushed the curiosity down. No. Questioning the doctors and Mr. Sendak and the teachers would only bring trouble. And troublewas bad. No questions. No. Nope. Bad. Not happening.

But the little niggling doubt was there throughout the day, combating a fuzzy feeling. The doubt almost got the upper hand when Keith dropped a physics book on his foot, but the fuzzy feeling returned once Mr. Shiro handed out another worksheet.

Keith folded his sheet over and ripped off the end, making his worksheet a square. Then he folded it into an origami crane.

"Seriously?" Lance whispered sadly, "That's your homework!"

Keith ignored him, folding the strip of paper he'd ripped off into several smaller origami cranes. Lance went back to his own worksheet. Maybe if he showed Keith instead of just telling...

Without warning, Keith ripped Lance's worksheet away, folding it into more cranes.

"Hey!"

"You're so busy bending over your damn homework, you never look up," Keith said simply, putting the smaller cranes in his bag, "This stuff will rot your brain, anyway. It's just to teach you to follow orders."

Lance frowned, the doubt and the fuzziness fighting again. "And what's wrong with that?"

Keith shrugged, flapping the wings of one of the bigger cranes. "Nothing, if you never want to see shapes in the clouds."

Then he picked up the two big cranes and walked out of class.

Ten minutes early.

Xxx

Lance met with Hunk and Katie in the library after school. "English is kicking my butt, he complained, "Mr. Coran keeps asking us to 'imagine' and 'create our own worlds. I like math and physics better. Just hard facts. No 'interpretation' or 'subjectively finding what the work is saying to you'. Just right or wrong answers."

"Speaking of Physics..." Hunk handed him the worksheet. "I got a copy made, since Keith ripped yours up."

Katie frowned. "Why did he do that? Why would he rip up his homework, and yours?"

Lance shrugged. "Something about following orders and looking at the sky. I don't know. It was too much like one of Coran's 'what's the author's meaning' assignments."

"Oh!" Katie said brightly, "I got a new roommate!"

Hunk grinned. "Oh, yeah! You were by yourself—wasn't it kind of lonely?"

"Not anymore!" Katie beamed, "Her name is Romelle, and she's really nice!"

"That's great," Hunk told her warmly, "Maybe we can be friends?"

"She's a little shy," Katie admitted, "But she's probably just homesick. You want to meet her now?"

Hunk grinned. "Yeah!"

Lance waved a hand. "I've got to do this Physics homework. I'll catch you later."

They left, and Lance was alone in the library, crunching numbers in application problems. The only sound was a ticking clock, and then the doors opening and shutting.

"You don't have your little friend now, do you?"

Lance looked blankly up at the student in front of him. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"

The other student howled in anger and spilled Lance out of his chair. "Seriously?!"

"Hey!" Lance protested, "That's mean, don't do that!"

The other student advanced on him, cracking his knuckles. "I'm going to do a whole lot worse!"

Lance scrambled backwards, feeling tears come to his eyes. "Why are you doing this? What did I ever do to you?"

"I don't know what happened to your brain. But I'm going to mess it up way worse than whatever this school did to you!"

Keith appeared silently from behind one of the bookshelves, ramming his shoulder into the other student's gut. "Lance. Go back to the room."

"Huh?"

Keith hauled him up by his collar and gave him a shove. "Get moving!"

Lance hesitated at the door. "Aren't you coming?" Maybe Keith was weird, and kind of mean. But this other student looked like he wanted to actually hurt someone, and Lance didn't want there to be any fights.

Keith cracked his knuckles. "I've just got to take out the trash."

Lance bolted, not sure if he was more afraid of the other student, or the scary look in Keith's eyes. The fuzzy feeling told him everything would be fine, and why was he running in the hallways? He knew that wasn't allowed!

Lance slowed down and walked the rest of the way to his room, his normal feeling of calm and safety returning. Ugh. Adrenaline was the worst.

Lance opened the door and walked into the room. Hunk was still gone, and Lance remembered with a groan that he'd left his homework in the library. He'd have to go back and get it later.

On an impulse, he looked up, and caught his breath. Dangling from the ceiling were dozens of paper cranes, all of them made out of homework sheets. Lance stared at them, wondering how he'd never noticed them. They were all attached to the ceiling with a piece of string that led to a tack, and Lance realized that the tacks made out constellations. A quick glance showed that the big cranes corresponded to the brightest stars in the constellation.

One of the cranes caught Lance's eye, and he tugged it down, frowning at the date. It was from over a month ago. Keith would have had to folded it, of course, because Lance didn't have a clue how to fold origami, and he and Hunk always did their homework, anyway.

But Keith hadn't been here that long!

Right?

(90% of me: yes, serious, symbolic, very nice. The other 10%: It's an au, I can make the cartoon characters swear 😏)