Gift fic for my dearest sister Aeius. Happy birthday, you poop. Also this turned out longer than I expected. It's still the 23rd here so this doesn't count as a late bday gift!

P.S. Here, I will be referring to Nanaba as a male, because that's I've been used to all this time. I apologize in advance for it!

Disclaimer: I don't own SnK.

"You're a dirty old man."

Blinking, Mike looks up at the young man scowling at him. He notes belatedly that said young man was also handing him a paper, which Mike accepts with a miniscule nod. The student in front of him still has to stop glaring at him or move away.

"That's a rather bold statement to be saying to your professor at the first day of the semester," Mike easily replies.

The student's glare further intensifies, the hand gripping the strap of his backpack turning white. They stay like this, one glaring, the other staring back, until Mike's T.A. walks back to the professor's desk as he waves goodbye to the students filing out of the classroom. Finally noticing the glare-off happening by the professor's table, the blond T.A. puts on a smile and touches the glaring student at the elbow.

"Eren, is something the matter?" he asks cordially, glad when the tense lines of Eren's shoulders droop down to relax.

"...nothing's the matter," Eren says, offering the T.A. a wry grin. "I was just telling the professor that he shouldn't saddle you with all of his job, Nanaba."

Nanaba laughs then, eyes crinkling at the sides. "You shouldn't worry about that, Eren. What you should be worrying about, though, is that you're going to be late for your next class if you don't sprint now."

Eren yelps at that, babbling an incoherent statement before dashing out the door, his confrontation with Mike completely forgotten. Not that it matters to Mike; he's just thankful now that the annoying presence is gone.

"He's got a point, you know." Nanaba's smile is still in place when Mike looks at him, though this smile has turned into a cheeky one. "I'm your T.A., not their professor."

Shrugging, Mike smooths out a random paper as he says, "If you say so, then."

"Does that mean you'll be helping with handing out the papers next class?" Nanaba asks hopefully.

"No."

"Hooo, your new conquest seems to be a bit young for you."

Mikes stops fiddling with his phone, turning his head to where Hange's located. She's sitting by the window, munching on a pear happily as she watches the students mill about at the school's grounds. Mike knows she's really only watching one person; a Hange watching a lot of people is a restless Hange, but a Hange watching just one person is a still Hange.

"I don't know what you mean," Mike honestly says as he goes back to fiddling with his phone. It makes a sound akin to a bell's, telling him that he has a received a new mail. Mike presses the envelope icon, eyebrows rising a bit as he reads who it's from and what its message is.

"You forgot to send me the material for next class! I hope you're at the teacher's lounge right now here in the main building, because I will NOT run around campus to hunt your ass all day!"

"Another feisty T.A.?" Mike frowns at his phone when he feels someone stand behind him.

"Peering over people's shoulders to see their messages is unbecoming of an esteemed professor, you know." He glances over his shoulder to find a highly interested Erwin whose eyes are glued to his phone's screen. Mike immediately presses the lock button to make the screen blackout.

"It may be so, but it's only you guys who are here to see." Erwin walks around the couch, sitting on Mike's left side because the space to the right is already occupied. Erwin leans forward a bit, catching the eyes of the person sitting on Mike's other side. "What's your take on this, Levi?"

Levi doesn't avert his eyes from the book that he's reading, seeming to completely ignore Erwin's question at first. "What's my take on what?" he says when he turns the page, just then finally glancing up to look up at the others.

Before he can answer, though, Hange lets out an excited squeal and leaves her post by the window. "Something interesting's coming!" she exclaims loudly, bouncing at the balls of her feet.

"Don't you mean someone?" Erwin corrects her. His grin is too wide for Mike's liking, but the man opts to not mention it since he knows it will just lead to further embarrassment for him.

"Someone?" Levi repeats, now interested enough to put his book down and listen to them more closely. It won't do for him to not know what his three colleagues are on about; being out of the loop is like offering yourself to be slaughtered easily. That's how it goes within their group, anyway.

"Mike's new target," Hange says conspiringly, winking at Levi before breaking out into a laugh. The others stare at her with varying degrees of exasperation, obviously used to her antics.

"Uh."

Four sets of eyes turn to the door, a rather red-faced blond standing by the doorway with half of his body hidden behind the door. He offers all of them a reluctant smile, unsure how to proceed now that he has taken stock of who're present in the room. Mike takes pity on him and pushes himself up, making a detour to the desk at the far right corner of the room to grab a folder. He makes a mental note to tell Hange to clean up the mountain of paperwork on the desk since it's her turn this week.

"Here." Mike presents the folder to his T.A., shaking it a bit when it hasn't been taken off his hands yet. Nanaba swipes it before he could shake it another time, tucking it under his arm and glaring up at Mike halfheartedly.

"You could've spared me the energy if you hadn't forgotten it earlier!" Nanaba hisses. Despite this, Mike knows he's not really cross with him. Or, at least, he hopes that's the case.

He's proven right when Nanaba breaks out into a grin shortly after and punches him lightly at the arm. "Don't forget next time or I swear to god I will unleash Eren's wrath on you."

Mike hears the crisp sound of paper being torn, but he ignores it to nod at Nanaba dumbly. "Ok."

Nanaba blinks then sighs in a defeated manner. "You're helpless! A professor that doesn't even know his students' names!"

"I have 25 kids in my class, did you really expect me to know all their names and to connect those names to their respective owners' faces?" Mike replies, feeling quite indignant for himself. Some people have said that he's eye-catching when he gets like this.

Too bad that Nanaba already slipped out into the hallway as he shouts "Of course!" over his shoulder.

Lingering by the door for a moment, Mike closes the door when he sees his T.A. be engulfed by the crowd of students. He steels himself for the first attack, and he isn't disappointed when Hange is suddenly at his side. He resists the temptation to puke at her face when she bats her eyelashes up to him coyly.

"So," she starts with her tone extremely devilish. "I still think he's too young for you."

"I agree," Erwin pipes up before Mike could even open his mouth. "You can get jailed for that, you know."

"He's 22." Mike ignores Hange's sudden guffaw and Erwin's too-wide grin. He really doesn't like being the subject of his friends' attention, so Mike goes, "At least he's legal, unlike Levi's conquest."

"Should I ask?" is how Nanaba greets him the next day. His T.A. was grumbling when he drops the copies for today's material on Mike's desk, huffing petulantly as he turns to further rant on Mike when his eyes land on the man's jaw.

Mike glumly stares back at his T.A. and says, "No." He moves closer to the stack of papers, absently picking one to read it. Or pretend to read it. It's actually just so that he can hide his face behind it, but Nanaba doesn't need to know that.

"Suit yourself." Nanaba hums as he places his things on the desk next near the windows. "By the way, it's your turn to hand out the papers today," Nanaba tells him with that cheeky grin of his before putting on his headphones.

"Got what you deserved, eh, old man?" Eren snickers like a kid who just outsmarted someone.

Mike resists the temptation to slap the boy with the handouts that he's distributing. Instead, he bypasses Eren and continues giving out papers to the other students. His skill to ignore people is high, after all.

"This is unfair!"

"You should make the move now," Hange tells him with an air of authority around her. The bottle of sake that she's holding nearly slips from her fingers.

"I know you and Erwin have a bet going on." He chugs down the entire content of his own sake bottle, burping when he put it back on the table. Across him, Levi visibly flinches and glares at his lack of manners.

"Well, there's that." Hange grabs another bottle, Erwin's this time. She doesn't even look fazed at having been found out. "But it's bad that you're not getting any. Having a lot of pent up sexual frustration can take a toll on you. And before you ask, I just know, okay?"

Mike decides not to respond, quite horrified and very drunk to form a rebuttal. What he does is wave at everyone and quickly slip out of the bar, intent on getting home and spend the rest of his weekend on his bed.

None of these happen because when he gets to his apartment Nanaba is sitting next to his door with his hoodie pulled up over his head and his scarf wrapped around most of the lower half of his face. When he looks up at Mike, the corners of his eyes crinkle in the way that says he's smiling.

"Took you forever to get here," he says as he stands up, patting the dust off of his pants.

Mike dumbly stares for a minute or two, the alcohol very much successful with its mission to muddle his thinking. "Did we have an appointment?"

Nanaba shakes his head from side to side. "Nah, but…" Behind the scarf, Mike can see the redness creeping on his T.A.'s cheeks and nose. Probably from the cold. "I got lost," Nanaba mumbles embarrassedly, his hands playing with the hem of his jacket.

Mike finds him unbearably cute.

"I was wondering if I could crash for the night? I know, I know, it's rather unconventional, but if I stay out any longer, I fear that I'll freeze. I get lost easily, no sense of direction." Nanaba shivers on cue, eyes closing when he tries to will them down. The next time he looks up at Mike, his eyes are wide and Mike knows he's already lost a battle that he didn't know he'd been fighting.

"Come in, then," Mike says gruffly as he unlocks his door. He prays to all the gods up there that he won't wake up the next morning regretting what will happen on the night.

He wakes up feeling no regret and his head pounding so hard there must be a hammer trying to break his skull. He tries to mutter something, but he only manages a pitiful croak and a dry cough. His body also feels like it's on fire.

"Here, water," someone to his side says and he feels glass pressing on his lower lip. Mike doesn't hesitate to open his lips and drink the water being given to him. He'll try to remember what happened last night and rationalize why there's a person inside his apartment. Can't be a burglar; burglars don't give a sick man water and wipe a damp cloth at their forehead.

"Must be because you were drunk last night," his unknown companion continues. "Though I never would've pegged you to have a weak immune system. You're freaking seven inches taller than me!"

"Body size isn't correlated with one's immune system," Mike croaks out.

"Sure," is the easy reply he gets. Mike promptly falls right back to sleep.

He wakes up a second time to see sunlight stubbornly trying to pass through his drawn blinds and the light snoring a few feet across him. Mike turns his head to the direction where the snores are coming from and finds a curled up Nanaba with Mike's extra comforter snugly wrapped around his body. Somehow, the blond managed to find the extra futon that Mike is sure that he already lost.

Mike notices once more how cute Nanaba is, and how his body feels cooler than before.

It's Hange's voice he wakes up to next. That and the too damp towel on his forehead.

"You need to wring the water out more, idiot." Mike recognizes that to be Levi's voice.

"If it stays wet longer, we won't have to change it so often!" And that's Hange's voice. Levi snorts, and Mike does the same except that it's promptly followed by a series of coughs that threaten to make his lungs burst.

"How are you feeling?" Even Erwin is here?

Mike opens his eyes blearily. Judging by the artificial light that's flooding his room, it must already be night time. He sees Hange sitting at the edge of his bed, grinning at him widely, while Levi's standing beside her, his expression set to its usual irritated one. Turning to the side, he sees Erwin sitting on top of the neatly arranged futon.

That doesn't seem right.

"He already went home," Erwin informs him, like the mind-reader that he is. "We came here as soon as I've read his message, which is sometime in the afternoon."

"We were all totally wasted," Hange proudly tells him. Mike doesn't know why she's proud of that.

"He's a good kid, that Nanaba. Didn't want to leave you alone and go home. I think he was worried you'd suddenly die and he'll be left with no part-time job." Erwin laughs at the dirty look that Mike gives him. "I'm serious when I say that you owe him one, though."

"I see."

"Take him out on a date!" Hange excitedly proposes, the poor towel she's twisting in her hands looking like it's going to tear apart soon. Her face doesn't fall when Mike gives her an unimpressed stare. "It's a totally romantic start to your blossoming relationship!"

"This is not one of your romance mangas, Hange," Levi tells her.

"Hey, wait up!"

Mike turns and it's Nanaba's bright smile that greets him, the flush on his cheeks and nose from the cold November wind making him more adorable. Mike tries to ignore everything, from Nanaba's adorableness when he sidles up next to Mike and falls in step with him to the quickening of the beating of his heart.

"Glad to see you're all better!" Nanaba says genuinely, all smiles when he glances up at Mike. "Though are you sure you should be out already? You're still a bit red on the cheeks."

The taller blond pulls his scarf up higher, pointedly no meeting Nanaba's eyes as they enter the school building. "It's just the cold wind. You're a bit red on the cheeks, too, you know."

Nanaba laughs at that, all cheerful albeit nervous, and Mike spares his T.A. a puzzled glance before he feels the familiar sensation of being glared at. They've just entered the classroom and Mike immediately spots the origin of the glare that he's receiving. Mike returns the glare with an indifferent stare as he puts his arm over Nanaba's shoulders and pulls his confused T.A. closer to him. He grins in satisfaction when he hears a pencil snap in half.

"Thanks for taking care of me, by the way," Mike gruffly says, giving Nanaba a squeeze then releasing him when they get to his desk.

"N-No— you're welcome," Nanaba stutters as he hastily walks to his desk. Mike then decides that he really likes the blush on Nanaba's cheeks.

"It's December," Erwin tells him one day. He's smoothing out his shirt and hair, a telltale sign that he just finished having fun.

"So it is."

"Soon, it'll be Christmas." The man then turns to him and Mike raises an eyebrow at the serious look that Erwin's giving him. "Christmas day marks the seventh month that you haven't had an—"

"Oh, for god's sake!" Mike grumbles out as he leaves the room, extremely irritated at the laugh that follows him in the hallway.

"Is it bad that I'm not getting any?" The sound of the stapler hitting the ground breaks the afternoon quiet, making Mike look up at a flabbergasted Nanaba. Then Nanaba licks his lips, gazes to the side, and then it's Mike's turn to be flabbergasted. (He recollects himself quickly enough to school his expression back to an indifferent one when Nanaba shifts his gaze back to him.)

"What—"

"Apparently it's a terrible, terrible thing that I'm not getting any because my friends— who are A-class assholes— have made it their mission to push me into getting laid." Mike resumes grading papers, nearly writing F to the one he's currently holding. He decides to be merciful and gives it a D instead.

"I— well—" he hears Nanaba say. Mike patiently waits for his answer. "I think that's good. Your friends getting you to— for looking after you!" A pause, then, "I don't really think it's an issue that you're not...getting any. Unless it's affecting your performance at your job or your everyday life."

Mike hums agreeably in reply, writing F on the next paper that he gets. It's not because the name on top says Eren Yeager.

That midnight, Mike finds himself panting on his bed, sweat making his shirt stick to his chest and something he doesn't want to name making his boxers stick to his nether regions. He hazards a glance down below, groaning at the tent of his boxers that is still apparent.

"I'm so fucked," he groans as he remembers the familiar blushing cheeks and tongue that plagued his dream. "So fucked."

The classroom is filled with tension the next day. Mike just grunts in reply to Nanaba's cheerful greeting and the proceeds to ignore him for the whole class. From the few glances that he surreptitiously made, Nanaba looks so downtrodden as though his most beloved dog had died.

Eren's also giving him a higher level of concentration of a glare, by the way.

"I'm sorry, but is it true that you and Nana-chan has gotten into a fight?"

Mike chomps down on his sandwich brutally. "No," he says through a mouthful of shitty ham-and-cheese sandwich.

Hange tuts, face the epitome of disappointment. "You can't do this to him! He's a very sweet boy whose heart isn't made to be broken by dirty old men!" She evades the pickle flicked her way with ease, scowling at her equally scowling colleague. "Mike, what the fuck is wrong with you? You're letting a really good one get away!"

"One, he's my T.A., and two, that's exactly the point." The sandwich is then shoved into his mouth, Mike chewing aggressively. When he gulps, he continues, "Also, he's not made to be a one-night stand for dirty old men, so—"

Hange's blank stare silences him. "I never said anything about one-night stands." She then breaks out into a grin and gets her phone out, rapidly typing in it. "It's decided, then. You and him are going to make up tonight. Be a darling and prepare a good meal, ok? I know you can cook better than Erwin."

"Even if you tell him my address, he won't find it. He gets lost easily," Mike says in surrender. He blinks at Hange's indecipherable stare again.

"What are you talking about? Nanaba is known for never getting lost. Gerger, his bff, told me so."

Nanaba is fidgeting in front of him, the perfect picture of a child caught in the act while simultaneously being seductive, too. Mike thinks something is wrong with that line of thought but ignores it, as usual.

"Hi?" The blond standing outside his apartment says, blush present and looking very adorable as usual. "Professor Hange said—"

"You lied. About you getting lost easily."

Nanaba closes his mouth with a click, eyebrows furrowing and lips pursing into a thin line. "I'm...sorry," he mumbles, appearing every bit of a chastised child. "It's just...I needed an excuse to end up here without coming off as a...a stalker."

Mike enjoys the sight of Nanaba being extremely uncomfortable and ready to bolt any time before he relents and says, "I hope you like pasta, because I made too much for just one person."

His T.A.'s expression morphs into a confused one before being replaced by realization and then reluctant hope. "I do," Nanaba replies. "As long as there's good wine to accompany it."

"I got that covered." Mike then opens the door wider, stepping to the side to let Nanaba in the warmth of his apartment.