"No."
"I haven't even said anything!"
"No."
"Levi..."
"No."
"But I already asked everyone else; you're the only one not doing anything over the holidays!"
"No."
"Please!"
"No."
...He did say no so what the hell is he doing here...?
Damn Petra and her vacation. Damn Petra and her puppy eyes. Damn everybody else for having shit to do.
"Levi, you look so cute!"
"Call me cute again and you'll find yourself in the hospital," Levi growled and shot his most annoying friend a venomous glare that would send anyone else running as far away as possible, preferably to another continent.
But not Hanji. Hanji just smiled at him and continued the conversation. "So are you all ready for your first day in customer service?"
"What do you think, four-eyes?"
"Guess not, then. But hey, it's not that hard. Just be nice, smile, and don't make them clean after themselves."
"That depends purely on them. If they make a mess-"
"But that's your job."
"No, that's Petra's job."
"Well, now it's yours. Hey, let's practice smiling before the people start coming, okay?"
"..."
"That's not a smile."
"You're right; that's the go-and-die look."
"Oh, come on! You know I won't stop, don't you, Levi? Look here, just put the muscles you've never actually moved to some use and stretch that mouth a little!"
...And thus began Levi's hell-week of acting as a stand-in waiter in a café while his so-called friend enjoyed her stupid vacation.
The first day could be summarised as Hanji scolding him for not being nice, not smiling, taking too long with wiping tables (not nearly long enough in Levi's opinion) and so on, and Levi ignoring her.
The second day Hanji partially gave up trying to make him smile as Levi at least finally perfected the art of not pissing anyone off while doing his job.
It was the third day when finally happened something that broke the awfully boring and surprisingly tiring routine.
It began innocently enough.
A small group of two guys and a girl came in, ordering coffees and pulling out some schoolwork. Probably their group assignment or something. Not that Levi cared.
It was peaceful for a while.
For a while being the keywords.
Soon one of the guys stood up and he snarled at the other, "You touch her again and I'll kill you, then I'll tell Marco!"
The addressed one didn't take it nicely. "Don't you dare Jaeger!" he hissed back. "It's not like I was touching her in a weird way!"
The girl face-palmed herself murmuring something about a naive teacher and idiotic guys. She then spoke louder, though still pretty quiet. "Eren, stop it. We're in public and he didn't do anything. Jean stop provoking him."
The Jean guy smirked. "But I didn't do anything, Mikasa. He's just over-reacting. Just what you'd expect of an idiot."
The other guy looked ready to flip out, but that was the moment Levi came in to save the day.
He grabbed both boys by their collars and proceeded to drag them out. But Hanji called after him, "Levi! We appreciate the initiative, but not in front of the shop!"
Levi rolled his eyes and changed the direction to the back. The boys could just struggle fruitlessly against the surprisingly firm grip of the guy who was a good bit shorter than the both of them.
They were completely at Levi's mercy so as they got thrown away after they passed through the back door, they could just slump to the ground, staring with wide eyes at the short man glaring down at them. They were both beautifully intimidated by his presence.
"Listen here, you brats. If you're gonna fight, by all means do it. But go somewhere else. I don't care where, just away. Got that?" Levi growled threateningly.
"Don't lump me together with that bastard! It was his fault!" the brown haired kid exclaimed.
"So it's my fault now that you are an idiot interpreting every little thing as me hitting on Mikasa?" said the blond one sarcastically.
Levi narrowed his eyes. "Do I look like I give a fuck about this shit?" The low growl sent chills down the two's spines and made them immediately shut up.
"Eren!" The girl came hurrying through the back door, their things in her hands.
She ran straight to brown haired one, looking for injuries of any kind. Levi supposed she thought he'd beat them up after dragging them out like that.
...As if he looked like thug...
Levi felt slightly offended and decided he didn't like the girl.
After she made sure not a hair was hurt on her precious boy's head (totally ignoring the other one, who noticeably sulked at that) she turned to Levi.
Black eyes met grey in a short staring contest (Levi came to the conclusion she had probably decided she didn't like him either) that ended when the girl bowed her head slightly and said, "I apologize; we've caused trouble for you. We'll be leaving now."
She grabbed the guys' arms and dragged them away with just as much force as Levi did earlier. (He briefly wondered why it was such a deal to her when he did it if she's just going to do the same.)
He shrugged and went back inside. "Stupid brats, causing trouble as they please..." he mumbled to himself.
When he heard a chuckle, he turned around to look at Hanji with a death glare. (Not that it ever worked with the stupid woman.) "What?"
"Says the gang-leader. Compared to what you used to do in high-school, they were so nice and polite and quiet..."
Levi sighed and rolled his eyes. "Are you gonna hold that shit against me for the rest of my life?"
"Yes."
"Great," he groaned in response. There you have it, kids. Go rebel for half a year and your whole life is fucked.
The next day one of the boys came in alone. When Levi came to take his order, he looked away. "Um, I'm sorry about yesterday..."
Levi stared at him for a second, trying to place the face and find out what the hell was he actually talking about. "Ah, that. It's fine; thanks to your girlfriend it was resolved pretty easily. But it would be appreciated if you two brats never came in together again."
The boy actually laughed. "Yeah, we hear that a lot... But, what girlfriend...?"
Levi raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, you mean Mikasa? She's my sister, actually."
Levi was confused. Levi didn't like being confused. "How? You're in the same class and wasn't she Asian?"
"Yeah; she's half japanese... We adopted her when we were nine..."
"Oh." That made sense. Or not.
...Whatever.
At that moment Hanji appeared out of nowhere with a brilliant smile. "Sorry, boys, but some of you are at work and it's kind of busy, so if you saved the flirting for later it would be great."
The boy gaped at her, while Levi only rolled his eyes. "Fine. Brat, are you actually going to order something?"
"Levi! Be nice I said!" called Hanji over her shoulder.
"The brat doesn't mind," growled Levi back and turned to said brat expectantly.
Eren looked up at him. "So your name is Levi? I'm Eren."
"...Whatever, brat. What do you want?"
For the next two hours Levi had a feeling of constantly being watched. Once in a while, when he actually cared to look, he would catch a pair of green eyes. What bothered him though was the fact that it didn't bother him.
For the next days it became a routine for Eren to come to the café sometime during the day, stare, and question Levi whenever he passed his table. And most of the time Levi even answered. Not always actually answering the question, but he did usually react in some way.
Quick, short conversations like 'How old are you?' 'None of your damn business.' were pretty normal between them.
(Hanji couldn't help but notice abnormalities in Levi's behaviour when it came to 'the brat' and being the good friend she was, she couldn't help but question him. Out of concern, of course. Or curiosity. Whichever you prefer.
"So how's 'the brat' today?"
"Don't call him that. His name's Eren."
"You always call him brat!"
"I can. You can't."
"Oh? You don't say?" she would flash an annoying grin, like she knew something he didn't. Levi was pretty sure she didn't.)
It was always Eren who initiated. Always but one time.
It was the last day Levi was working there when he spoke up before Eren managed to do so. "Brat, are you a masochist or something?"
"Huh?"
"Why are you so interested in me?"
Eren stopped to think for a moment before answering. "Not sure. Guess I got enchanted by your charisma?" Eren offered an awkward smile.
Levi wasn't really sure how to interpret that answer. "Whatever. But stop being so obvious when checking people out, some might find you creepy."
"I was not checking you out!"
"Oh, really? But when did I say anything about me?" That was the first time the boy actually blushed. Levi smirked at him as he walked away.
Before Levi left the café for the last time that day (to a great relief of Levi and every temporary co-worker and customer – with the honourable exceptions of Hanji and Eren), he came up to Hanji. "Hey, take this."
Hanji stared at the paper Levi was shoving to her hand. "What's this? ...Is that your number?"
"Yes."
"But I already have it?"
"I know, you idiot."
"Than what-"
"Just shut up and take it."
For the next few days Eren continued coming to the café but was always disappointed to find no Levi. In the end, the ever so observant Hanji took pity on him and went to talk to him.
"Hey, looking for someone?" she smiled at him. "Levi's not here anymore, you know?"
Eren shot her a startled look. "Huh? How come?"
"He was here just for the week to help out while one of the girls was away. Hey, you've been watching the guy for almost a week and you seriously thought anyone sane would hire him for this type of work? He's awful with people! And he wastes too much time cleaning clean things."
"Well, when you put it like that..."
"So he didn't tell you?"
"I haven't seen him since last week and he never told me anything I didn't ask about. And sometimes even then he didn't. Why should he anyway..." answered Eren, dejected.
"Haha, yeah. But don't take it personally. Actually, be honoured he didn't completely ignore you," Hanji smirked mischievously. "So you didn't ask for his number?"
Eren suddenly looked panicky. "No! That would be creepy, no?"
"No, not really. Well, maybe a little but why should you care?" Hanji started snickering as the realization downed on her. She digged through her pockets until she found what she was looking for.
"Well, I have good news for you... But you both owe me one, so give me details later." She smiled brightly as she left no room for discussion.
Eren looked questioningly between her sparkling eyes and the small piece of paper held in between her fingers.
A month later
"So... How's Eren? I haven't seen him since he stopped coming to the café..."
"...The brat's fine."
"It's been what, three weeks since the first date? And you still call him a brat."
"Because he is one."
"Sure. Tell him to come visit! He was so sweet when I talked to him!"
"No. Who knows what shit you'd put into his head."
Hanji pouted. Out of spite she opened the topic she avoided for the past month out of consideration. "But still. Why did I have to give him your number?"
"..."
"You couldn't have just-"
"No."
"Who knew you were so shy!"
"...Shut up."
"You're so cu-" she was cut off by a foot in her stomach and a growl of 'I warned you'.
A/N: This's been existing in my laptop for about three months by now... I'm still not really sure I should be posting it... I hope it was readable, at least... ;;
(The hardest thing about writing this was the title. Seriously. I was staring into space trying to come up with something for, like, twenty minutes... ;;)