CHAPTER 1

"Stop it!" I whined, like the little child I was.

He had grabbed my teddy bear yet again, but this time he kept stomping on it, with no intentions to stop.

"Cut it out!"

"Then stop being such a little bitch," He just answered, ending the fight by kicking the teddy to the other end of the room.

I started to cry, as I crawled towards the wall to grab the toy. I hugged it, burying my face into the soft fabric.

"You're such a girl," He said, before walking over to stand in front of me.

"And you're a bully," I answered, not wanting to look at him. "Go away!"

"Why should I do anything you say? I'm older than you, brat. I am the one who makes the decisions,"

He squatted down to face me properly, and I lifted my head a tiny bit to look at him from the corner of my eyes.

It was blurry though, since I was still crying.

"Well, your decisions suck," I mumbled, resulting in him grabbing my hair and tilting my neck back.

"Impressive language you have for a 7 year old little shit," He chuckled, but there was no laughter in his eyes. I was forced to look at him now, and I saw nothing but indifference in his eyes.

I shivered. I felt cold just by looking at him.

"Impressive how little your brain is, for a 9 year old," I almost pressed the words out through my gritted teeth, making my hands into fists.

I could see how his jaw clenched, making me shiver in fear. He looked like he wanted to kill me.
"You're damn lucky that your mother still checks for bruises on you," He said, his face getting closer to mine. "Or I would kick your sorry ass,"

He almost whispered it, and the sound of his voice made me push him away. The 2 years between us made the strength difference quite clear though.

"But I won't touch a hair on you,"

He stood up, smiling down on me. I stayed pressed up against the wall, holding my teddy bear tight against my chest. I sighed in relief, even though his odd smile creeped me out.

"But I can hurt you in other ways though,"

He moved so quickly, I didn't even realise that my teddy bear was out of my arms before he had walked away with it.

"What? No, stop! Don't hurt Mr. Teddy!" I screamed, trying to stand up to get to him. I was too late, though.

As if everything happened before my eyes in slow motion, I saw Levi turn around to face me. His hand had grabbed around the teddy's neck, ripping it off.

I screamed out in agony, as I witnessed my most precious toy being torn apart in front of me.

"Eren, are you okay?"

I nodded quickly, turning my head to face Mikasa. She was sitting in front of me, with several books on the table between the both of us. We were studying in the library as always, and as always I never paid attention. Or no, I actually wanted to learn, but I somehow always ended up spacing out instead.

"Yeah, sorry about than. Where were we?"

"At question four. What is burn-beating and the difference between that and mechanised farming?"

I rubbed my forehead, shrugging my shoulders.

"Ahh … Umm … Burn-beating is when you burn the forest away before starting to work on the soil … And, umm … "

"And then you only work on it for 1-2 years, before moving onto the next piece of land,"

A voice from behind me supplied. A loud donk was heard when several books landed on the table.

Arms wrapped around my chest, and I felt a cold cheek pressed against mine for a second.

"Working hard, eh?"

Mikasa was still writing down what both of us had said, making time for me to move my head to the side to look him in the eyes.

"As always," I rolled my eyes to support the sarcasm in my tone. He just chuckled as an answer before giving me a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Are you done being cute and fluffy? I need this done today, Eren." Mikasa said irritated, hitting her pencil onto the table several times. Loudly.

"Sorry," The lovely boy behind me mumbled, before grabbing his books again. "I won't disturb you any more than necessary. I just wanted to remind you that you're coming over to my place tonight,"

"As if we could forget!" Mikasa rolled her eyes, but her face looked softer now. "You've been talking about your new room for weeks,"

"And now I finally get to show you. I'm so excited!" He chuckled, jumping up and down for a few seconds, clapping his hands.

I laughed, finding him absolutely adorable.

"Stop it, okay? The Library Lady will find you and ban you from here for a week!" I saw, sounding very serious. He stopped instantly, looked at me with horrified eyes.
"Sorry," He whispered, clearly terrified by the thought.

"It's fine," I laughed by the result of his expression. "Just go home. We'll meet you at 6, okay?"

"Okay. See you later!"

He tried to wave while holding all the book with the other hand. Clearly it didn't go very well, resulting in him dropping several books on the floor. He quickly squatted down to pick them up again, and then running out before the Library Lady could come and ban him for making noises.

After waving back, my hand fell down to rest on the table, and I looked at Mikasa.

"Let's get this over with," I said with confidence, sending her a smile. She returned it with a small one, but at least it was one.

She had been so moody lately, something I couldn't really help but notice. I had already tried to figure out the answer, though there could be several things wrong.

The one thing I had believed to be the source though, was that she was annoyed by me and Armin.

We had only started dating a couple of weeks back, and she probably felt like a third wheel.

Probably.

"Wauw, Armin, this looks great," I said, looking around the room. My comment came out a bit flat, making it sound unbelievable, so I quickly added "I like the colour,"

Armin had been so excited for us to see it, and I felt like his excitement had giving me too high expectations. The room was normal, just like anyone elses, yet he was acting like it was the greatest thing in the world.

It was bigger than the one he had had before, and all the colours of the walls was light blue. The floor was white as well as the ceiling, and the curtains was a darker shade of blue. His one size bed was in the corner, making room for his large desk and the huge bookcase that was filling a whole wall on the other side. It was all filled with books of course.

"It's really pretty, Armin," Mikasa said, placing herself in the chair at the desk. I kept went over to the bookcase where there was a shelf that wasn't filled with books. Instead there was 4 different photographs. The first one was with his family, the second with his grandfather, and the third was with me and Mikasa when we where younger. I smiled at the memory – that day we had been making christmas decorations, and all of our faces and hair was filled with glimmer. We looked rather cute, I acknowledged with a smile on my face.

Those were the days.

I grabbed the last photo in my hands, surprised. It was me and Armin, but I couldn't remember it being taken.

"When was this?" I asked confused, showing it to Armin who was standing at the bed. When he looked up, his face instantly flustered, and he quickly walked over there.

"Oh, that's … " He took it from my hand, staring at it intensively for a moment before putting it back. "A couple of days after we got together,"

"Oh,"

I looked at it again, noticing the details now. We were sitting in my sofa, me having an arm around Armins waist. He was looking at me with that look that just screamed how happy and in love he was.

I, on the other hand, were smiling.

Just smiling.

I looked at Armin, whose cheeks where still red from the blushing, and he was looking at me as well. Why didn't I reach that way, when I had seen it? Why hadn't I been looking so happy in that picture? Why had I just looked … Mediocre?

Armin noticed the odd expression on my face, resulting in him grabbing my hand.

"Hey, are you okay?"

I quickly smiled at him, after being torn from my thoughts.

"I'm fine. This place really is gorgeous," I stepped closer to him, and kissed him softly on the lips before pulling back again.

It was nice. That's all.

Nice.

My heart hadn't raced, my vision hadn't become blurry and I couldn't feel any butterflies in my stomach.

Yet, I liked the way his lips tasted. How I had to bend over to kiss him. How soft his hair was, when I slided my fingers through it. I liked his smell, and his joyish attitude towards everything. I liked his smile, and the wrinkles he got under his eyes when he did it. There was so much I liked about him.

I liked him. But was that enough?

I had never known true love. I had seen it on films, read about it in the books, but never really experienced it.

Was it love between me and Armin? Or was it just because we had both found out that we were gay, and then it had just been convenient?

No, I refused to believe that. I genuinely cared about Armin. I loved him.

I just didn't know if I loved him as a friend, or as my lover …

"Stop it, you're making me nauseous," Mikasa complained, and the moment was over.

Mikasa had driven us home in her car, and of course both mom and dad had been waiting for us. Just when I thought I would get a good night's sleep.

"Kids, we need to talk to you in the living room,"

I had shared a worried look with my sister, before we obediently when after our parents.

"What's up?"

We had placed ourselves on the one side of the dinner table, while our parents were sitting on the other side.

"There is going to be a little change on our family," Mom said, smiling at us, though it wasn't a happy smile.

I raised an eyebrow, not understanding what she meant.
"Wait, are … " I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Are you guys getting divorced?"

Mom and dad shared a quick glare, before chuckling.

"No honey, of course not!"

Mom reached out a hand to grab mine tightly.

"Do you both remember Levi Ackerman?" Dad suddenly asked, with a grave tone. I nodded, as memories flooded inside my head.

The cruel, violent little boy who had terrorised me everytime his family and him had visited ours. My toys always ended up smashed in every single way possible, the one worse than the one before. My jaw clenched, when I remembered my most favored possesion, Mr. Teddy, being shredded to pieces. Luckily, that had been the last time I had seen him. It had been 9 years since then, since I was 16 now.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well … His dad went on a business trip to another country that's going to last for at least a year, and since he doesn't have any family left … Then we said that we would take him in,"

"What?!" I looked at them in shock. "You can't be serious? He's a horrible person! I hate him, I – "

"Eren, watch your mouth!" Dad yelled, hitting his fist against the table, silencing me. I still looked at them with anger burning in my eyes though.

"Levi isn't 18 yet, so until then he will be staying here. He will turn 18 in 4 months, but if he chooses to stay after that, he is more than welcome to do so," Dad had said it to both of us, but now his eyes focused on me only.

"And you will treat him with kindness and respect," He stood up, looking down at me still. "Is that clear?"

"Yes sir," I answered, almost whispering the words. I wanted to scream at him though, that Levi was supposed to be told that, that he should treat us with kindness and respect, and our things as well.

"That's good, because he's coming tomorrow, and since there is no other rooms avaliable … " Dad didn't say anything further, leaving it to me to figure out what he meant.

The realisation hit me within seconds.

"He is not sleeping in my room!" I yelled, standing up as well. "I won't accept this!"

"You will accept it, or you're not going to college!" Dad yelled as well, while the two females just stared at the dominance fight between us.

"THEN I WON'T GO!" I screamed, not even knowing fully what the words that were coming out of my mouth meant.

"Young man, you live under MY roof, eat MY food and sleep in the bed that I paid for! You will damn well accept this, or you will enjoy these things no more!"

I took a step back, pushing the chair behind me away.

"Are you kicking me out?" I asked him in absolute horror. "I'm your son, and you'll kick me out for some stupid, mean boy?"

Mom stood up this time, looking at me calmly.

"Levi has been through more than you know, darling. You need to give him a second chance,"

I didn't want to hear it. I turned around on my heel, and ran out of the room instantly.

"You come back here right this second, young man!"

I could hear the words behind me, but I didn't listen anymore. I climbed up the stairs until I reached my room, finally being able to throw myself down into my bed.

I couldn't believe that I wouldn't have this for myself anymore.

How was I ever going to live with that monster in my house?

Hi, and welcome to my new Ereri story!

Yes, it is Eremin right now, but trust me - this is a Ereri story. They will be together, I kinda just need Armin to be an obstacle ... Plus, I thought it could be kind of fun to write Eren with someone else than Levi, just to see how he would act in another relationship.

Well, review and tell me if you like the story so far, it makes me really happy to hear what you guys think! And follow to get notified when I put out a new chapter! The next couple of chapters have already been written, so I'll be sure to post them soon!

Otherwise, stay lovely! xoxo