Beep Beep Beep

Literally for the twentieth time that morning, Eren hit the snooze button on his damn alarm clock. He hated a lot of things but not as much as mornings and alarm clocks. At least it was a Friday. Only a few more hours of class, and then you're free, he thought to himself.

He had stayed up all night finishing his homework for University and he was tired as hell. He laid in his bed, eyes closed, and enjoyed the warmth of his blankets. It was December now and the fact that Mikasa rarely turned the heat on made the apartment they were living in absolutely freezing. Hell, Eren bet that if he left a bowl of ice cream out on the counter all night it would be perfectly fine in the morning. That made it much more difficult for him to groggily shove of his covers and place his feet on the cold, laminate flooring. Ruffling his awful bed head, he yawned and glanced at the clock, which was currently making that annoying beeping sound again.

It read 6:45 AM

"Shit…" Most mornings his sister, Mikasa, would wake him up, usually by shoving his lazy ass off the bed, but wake him up no less. Swim season started a few weeks earlier though, so Mikasa was up and out of the apartment by 5 AM and that meant Eren had to get his own lazy ass out of bed. By now he was running 45 minutes late and so Eren quickly grabbed the first pair of pants and shirt he found in the dryer, thankful that he had remembered to actually do laundry last night. He slipped on his clothes and made his way to the bathroom where he tried to tame the massive beast called his hair. After five minutes he gave up and decided to deal with it, it's not like he has a date or anything.

"Shit…" Eren muttered for the second time that morning. He did have a date. He was supposed to meet this girl at the arcade tonight and he almost forgot. How would someone forget something like that one might ask? Eren had no fucking clue. Quickly, he jotted down a note telling Mikasa that he was going to be late coming home and went to place it on the kitchen counter. There, he found that Mikasa had actually left him a note as well:

Remember I'm leaving early today for practice. I'll see you at school. Don't forget to eat breakfast and grab your homework. I won't be able to run home for you if you forget -Mikasa

Eren smiled at the note. Mikasa had always looked out for him, ever since she was adopted into the family. A few years ago, Mikasa's parents were murdered by a band of ghouls and Eren's father, who works for the CCG as an experimental doctor, adopted her into the family (The CCG is a company of investigators that is designed to hunt and investigate ghouls, monstrous but human-like creatures that live off the flesh of humans). Because of his job, Grisha Jeager is never home and usually spends his nights at the office. As for his mother, Eren doesn't know much about what happened to her. Eren's father told him that a ghoul had killed her right after he was born, but he never went into any detail. All he knew was that she was a really beautiful woman, according to the picture of her and Grisha in the living area, and that Eren had inherited her striking blue-green eyes and brown hair.

Eren shook his head. These depressing thoughts would seek to only worsen his mood. He grabbed his wallet and keys off the counter and shouldered his book bag. He glanced at the clock on his phone and it read a few minutes after 7. Like magic, his phone buzzed at that exact moment. It was a text from his best friend, Armin:

Eren! Where are you?

I overslept. I'll be there in a few, Eren replied.

Every morning, he, Armin, and Mikasa meet up at a local coffee shop named Café Maria that was close to their University campus for breakfast, though for the past few weeks it was only him and Armin because of Mikasa's swim practice.

Eren pocketed his phone and hastily moved out the door of the apartment, making sure to lock it securely behind him, and stepped into the elevator. After a quiet ride down, he exited the lobby and strode over to the bike rack in front of the building. It took him a few minutes because of the cold to unchain his bike from the rack. Once he did though, he swiftly hopped onto his bike and began the trek to the café. It began snowing and Eren regrettably realized that he had left his hat and gloves in the apartment. At least he had his coat so he wouldn't freeze to death, not completely anyways. It was about a ten minute ride to the café, but Eren made it there in less than that. On the way there though he did accidentally run over a couple of businessmen, who presumably spewed off a few choice curse words but Eren hardly heard them.

Eren chained his bike in front of the coffee shop and scurried inside, all the while breathing into his hands to thaw them out. Once he went inside, the warmth of Café Maria hit him like a breath of fresh air. He has always loved coffee but to his best friend's disappointment, he can only take it black. Eren hated the idea of milk and sugar in his coffee. It completely grossed him out.

Armin, as perky as ever, bounded up to him with a smile and a half-eaten bagel in his mouth, "I made sure to get you one, don't worry," he said nearly jumping up and down as he handed Eren and cinnamon-raison bagel and a black coffee.

Eren gawked at the amount of energy the kid had this early in the morning. It absolutely astonished him that anyone can be anywhere near delightful before 10 AM. "Thanks", Eren said as he and Armin took a seat in one of the booths. Eren sipped at his coffee and munched on his bagel along with Armin as they chatted.

In the café, as usual, the two baristas, Ymir and Krista, were busily working on making the coffee and pastries, and the busboy (Marco?) was wiping off one of the tables. What he hadn't noticed before when he had walked in was that the café had taken on a new employee, who was now working the register. Eren nearly choked on his coffee when he saw it was none other than Jean Kirschtein, an arrogant, horse-faced bastard who happened to share some of the same classes as Eren at University. They were constantly getting into fights, many of which end with Mikasa breaking the two of them up, and leaving one or both of them with a broken nose or black eye.

Eren rolled his eyes. Jean just had to invade one of Eren's favourite places now didn't he. It was then that Eren realized that Armin was tugging on his jacket, trying to get his attention.

Armin motioned to the TV that the café had hanging in the corner of the room. The local news station was on and the caster was giving a report on a recent ghoul attack. Usually, this area of the city was a somewhat peaceful area but recently there have been more and more murders. Like last night. This time it was a male named Mylius Zeramuski who was killed. Strange, the name seemed familiar.

Eren turned to Armin, whose expression was stricken with dread, "Armin, are you okay?"

Armin gulped, "Mylius... He's a member of the Journalism Club. We were supposed to be partners on an upcoming project… I can't believe he's dead…"

Eren reached out to his friend's hand, "I'm sorry…" Honestly he had no idea what else he could say. He never really knew Mylius but he felt the loss for Armin.

Armin shook his head, "I'm fine." He chugged down the last of his coffee and stood up. "I'm going to run to the restroom, I'll be right back," he said with a small, forced smile.

Eren nodded his head and watched his friend walk to the other side of the café to where the bathrooms were located. He would have gone after him to make sure he was okay but Eren knew there was nothing he could do. He'd never been all that great at consoling people. After Armin left, the sadness Eren felt began to mold in anger, pure, unadulterated anger. It really pissed him off that these ghouls could mercilessly take a life like that. And it pissed him off even more that they are continuing to hurt the people around him. This merely strengthened Eren's resolve to join the CCG and become an investigator once he graduated from University. He wanted to keep things like this from ever happening again; too many people have had their lives completely stripped away. He wanted so badly to rid this world of ghouls.

He stood up from the table, still a little lost in thought. As he was making his way to the trashcan to throw away his empty coffee cup, he collided head first into another customer. Unfortunately, the man Eren had bumped into was carrying a full cup of steaming hot coffee that was now soaking into the man's white, and very expensive-looking, coat. "ahhh fuck…" Eren groaned.

"Oi, watch it kid."

Eren looked up, or rather down, at the man he just ran into and went a little bit on the defensive at the man's assertiveness, "Sorry, it was an accident." Normally Eren would have gone off on the guy, especially in his current mood, except that something about the look in the stranger's eyes told him that that probably wasn't the smartest of ideas. What really caught Eren's attention though was that fact that he was stunning; with raven-black hair and deep-set, blue-grey eyes, which were now stone cold and hardly welcoming. His expression was also a blank slate, that didn't give anyway any hint to what he was feeling.

Trailing behind the raven-haired guy was a taller and stockier built one, who was wearing the same type of formal(ish?) coat as the shorter man, a little odd considering the casual atmosphere of the coffee shop. The taller one was handsome as well, but those eyebrows, damn they were weird, like, who has eyebrows that thick?

A voice broke Eren out of his trance, "Are you going to quit gawking or go get us a few napkins? You've made a mess all over me and the floor."

Eren shook his head quickly went to the counter to ask for some, making sure to avoid any form of eye contact with Kirschtein. What was with him today? Blindly following someone's order like that… Yes, it was technically his fault but it still kind of pissed him off… In any case he got the napkins he needed and went back to mop of the small puddle of coffee on the tile flooring. By the time he finished cleaning it up, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the taller of the two, the one with the weird eyebrows.

"Sorry about him, he could be a little brash sometimes." With that, the blond left Eren to join his colleague at one of the tables.

Eren took a seat back at the booth him and Armin had occupied. Speaking of, where the hell was he? Eren was about to get back up to search for his friend when the little blond tapped him on the shoulder.

Ready to go?" Armin asked.

Eren could see that his friend was still a bit worked up, "You okay, man?"

Armin nodded his head, "I'll be fine. Anyways we should probably start heading to class. It starts in ten minutes"

Eren grabbed his book bag and hoisted it over his shoulder. As they made their way to class, Armin spoke up, "After class, do you want to meet up and work on some homework together? I know you have been struggling with your Physics class lately, and I could give you some of my notes. Let's face it, your note-taking sucks."

Eren felt guilty has hell, "I would but… uhhhh… I actually have a date tonight."

"Ehhhh?", Armin's eyes went wide. He was thankful for this small distraction as well as he was genuinely surprised that Eren was actually able to get a date. He was happy for him none the less. "And you waited until now to tell me this?!"

"Don't look so surprised!" Eren chuckled as he lightheartedly punched Armin in the shoulder.

Armin then threw a myriad of questions at him, "What's her name?! What does she look like?! Where did you two meet?!"

Eren scratched the back of his head, "Her name is Annie. She has really pretty blonde hair, blue eyes, and this cute little nose. We met at a book shop not too far from University and we're planning on meeting at the arcade after class".

Armin grinned one of his big, adorable grins. "Good luck tonight, man, you're gonna need it".

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!" Eren said, mockingly offended.

Armin shrugged, "You haven't exactly had the best of luck in the past, you know."

That was certainly the understatement of the year. Every time Eren found someone he was sincerely interested in, things just got weird or ended very, very badly. Like one time he dated this girl, Hitch, back in high school and she ended up ditching him in the middle of the night and practically stole all of his personal savings.

They made it to their class with less than a minute to spare. It was World History 201 taught by a professor named Shadis. Armin and Eren took their seats in the front row, to Eren's dismay. He hated being this close to the teacher but he knew his friend sometimes had a hard timeseeing and Eren didn't want to leave him all alone up in the front. Armin winked at him and gave him two thumbs up, "It'll be fine, trust me."

Eren sighed and put his chin on his desk. He just really hoped this one will turn out okay.