Throwing his bag in the wooden storage compartment, identified as his by the E. Jaeger label peeling off the divider above Thomas Wagner's own section, Eren pinned on his name badge, cursing as he pricked his thumb doing so, and made his way as slowly as possible to the deli. A line of half a dozen or so customers huffing and tapping their feet impatiently as the new kid struggled to wrap up an order. Eren didn't know his name but he knew that he would have a long night ahead working alongside a newbie.
"Hi, here I'll help with that," he interrupted the struggling boys attempts and quickly packaged the ham into a neat bundle, offering the customer his apologies with a kind smile only to receive a glare in return. Hurriedly pulling on a pair of latex gloves, Eren resumed position behind the chilly counter.
From there the two boys worked as a team of sorts, no one suggested it but the novice collected and weighed the orders whilst Eren packaged them, giving every customer an apology and a smile to send them on their way and shortly the line was gone. Throughout the next half hour it became clear to Eren that Connie wasn't the brightest, but he was a nice guy and made a fair amount of jokes for someone that he had just met.
At around 8 when the customers slowed down enough, they practiced wrapping paper until an angry brunette stormed behind the counter and declared that she refused to work checkout anymore. Eren knew that arguing was futile and as he removed his gloves and cap, heard Sasha telling Connie all about the troubles of working checkout in loud detail and for a moment he felt sympathetic for the new kid, he had at least half an hour of Sasha to deal with.
A familiar twinge in the side of his head made Eren groan, it had been hours since his last smoke and he didn't get off work until closing time tonight. Taking over the vacant Counter 6, Eren was in charge of both checkout and tobacco sales, luckily it was a Thursday and both were relatively quiet at this time; however this allowed him to focus on the growing niggling in his brain and he rapped his fingers against the counter.
Soon he was one of the only two counters operating, he didn't recognise the other worker so they stood in content silence, both watching as the clock drew closer and closer to 10pm. At 9:30 Sasha and Connie began closing up the store, chatting happily as they did so. The indication of the near closing time relaxed Eren, and he opened the drawer top row, three in and pulled out a packet of Peter Jackson Blues, ringing them through the register and swiping his debit card. Unfortunately he made the mistake of checking his balance and grimaced as the disgracefully low number came up. "I'm so fucked this month," he thought, mentally chiding himself for spending most of his money in one week when payday wasn't for another fortnight.
Too busy wallowing in despair Eren didn't notice the boy standing at the counter until he coughed and shot him a look of disgust. "Sorry, how can I help you tonight?" he automatically blurted, taking in the boy's appearance. He couldn't have been older than 15 stature wise, short, relatively thin and adopted a stance that was simultaneously confident and defensive, his jet black hair styled in an undercut and a glare to kill.
"Peter Jackson Blues," he drawled, staring directly into Eren's eyes.
"Do you have any I.D. on you?" Eren asked, he refused to stammer under the intense gaze. He didn't care about age, most of the teenagers in the city knew that and would always come in when they thought he would be working. The only reason he asked for I.D. was because of the security cameras monitoring every move, he rarely even glanced at the age. This time however he was curious as to the actual age of the customer in front of him, and had to hide any shock on his face when he discovered that Levi Rivaille was a year older than him.
Although he looked pissed off to be asked for I.D., Levi raked his bored eyes over the boy serving him, tapping his fingers against the counter as he did so. Average height, average build, average brown hair, average complexion – a relatively clear face but not totally devoid of pimples or blackheads, but his eyes.
He was turned away fetching the cigarettes from the drawer top row, three in, but he was continuously glancing back at Levi, as if to check he was still there. During these fleeting looks, Levi stared unashamedly at the orbs of fantastic emerald yet maintained an irritated expression, refusing to show any hint of interest.
Eren felt the heat of Levi's pewter eyes burning holes in the back of his neck as he fumbled with the cartons inside the drawer. He smiled lopsidedly as he placed the carton on the counter and waited for Levi to swipe his card. Sasha and Connie were walking to the back to get their things before heading home and waved to him as they continued talking, after a quick check that Levi's purchase didn't need confirmation yet, he waved back and felt the slightest bit smug about the opportunity to look popular in front of the raven haired customer.
As Levi neared the automatic sliding door, Eren wished him a good night. There was no response or indication that he had even heard it as he continued pulling out a cigarette, climbed gracefully into his car and flicked his lighter. It coughed and sputtered in a feeble attempt to empty its dwindling contents, and success. Drawing in deeply, Levi pulled his car out of the lot and let the tension out of his shoulders as he made his way down the road.
After deciding that it was close enough to 10pm to lock the store, Eren and the other worker, Ymir, locked the front door and wished each other a nice night as she moseyed to the bus stop and he clambered into his shitty second hand car and physically wound the window down with the handle. Imitating the scene he had just witnessed, Eren pulled out a smoke from the Peter Jacksons and lit it without as much issue as Levi had had, inhaling sharply as the ache in his head receded to a peaceful numb.
"Jesus Christ that guy was a prick," he murmured as he reversed from his parking space and made a mental list of all the things he had to do before his next lecture at 3pm tomorrow. He concluded to do the majority of his International Trade homework and study and in the morning he would work on his Global Geopolitics report.
He opened the white front door with the usual creak and lumbered up the immediate flight of stairs, his exhausted body screaming in protest and he had to haul himself up the whole 8 stairs using the railing. Pulling open the cabinet above his fridge, Eren pulled out a bottle of amber liquid that was half gone and mixed it with the last of his coca cola.
The welcome burn of the concoction helped Eren snap his focus to the coursework at hand and after 90 minutes he was nearly done. Stretching and deciding to do the rest some time before class tomorrow, Eren downed the contents of his third drink and after a quick trip to the bathroom, collapsed entirely gracefully on his bed, not bothering to get changed or pull the covers over him.
Meanwhile, Levi was basically mimicking Eren's exact actions. Despite Levi's rum being at a lower volume, he poured a lot more of the honey coloured liquid into his coke, and made a lot more trips to the cabinet for refills.
He didn't bother with his assigned homework, he knew he wouldn't have to work too hard to keep up with the cretins he now attended university with. A pre-prepared progression of Levi's evening was one he wasn't entirely dreading. Before he got too intoxicated he flicked through the textbooks for Biomedicine and concluded it was going to be a long but not terribly dull year.
After a reasonable amount of alcohol had entered his system he pulled out the glossy and surprisingly heavy yearbook (an odd initiative for a university to be running in Levi's opinion) and went through the students, courses, extracurricular activities and upcoming events in the school.
Bored, exhausted and highly tipsy, Levi piled all of the reading materials in order from thickest to thinnest and placed them neatly on his desk before he blundered to the bathroom to haphazardly prepare for bed.