As she was standing there introducing herself as his new neighbor, Eren noticed how beautiful she was, he noticed her thick black hair, gray piercing eyes, her stoic expression, he noticed that his heartbeat was going wild.
It was summer, he was sweaty and her name was Mikasa.
"Eren." he responded briefly. "So, you just moved in huh?" He tried to play it cool, but he sounded like a desperate teenage boy to be honest. It took her some time before nodding.
"Okay, ehm... let's get along! Are you new here?" Eren continued not wanting to stop the conversation. He was nervous, he must admit, but not nervous enough to waste his chance.
"Yes, I don't know the city very well. I've got lost on my way here way too many times. I guess it'll take me some time to get used to it." She answered.
He immediatly suggested to show her around, maybe his reaction was a bit too fast, she seemed starteled but in the end they agreed on going for a drink the next day at 10:00 am.
So Eren ended up standing infront of Mikasa's flat, terribly nervous and also terribly fussy about his appearence - something that never happened because he simply never had to. He knew he was good-looking but most importantly everyone else knew it too. But for some reason it felt like Mikasa was out of his league.
He took a deep breath and finally knocked on her door adjusting his hair one last time. At the sight of her, he decided that he didn't care about leagues anymore.
Eren had it all planned out; he knew a nice place with good coffee and for the rest, the city would do it's job. Berlin was great, so Eren just had to show it.
On the way to the coffee shop Eren kept pointing at all sort of things, leaving Mikasa amazed by his enthusiasm. She's never been really good with people, it had always been difficult for her to show emotions, she only did that around her family, no wonder Eren creeped her out a bit when they first met, no one had ever shown so much interest in her. She wished she could've shown the same interest- which was defenitely there- but she decided that it was too awkward, also she didn't know if he was just being polite to the new girl who couldn't handle the new city.
They kept going, drank their orange juice and chocolate smoothy,- Eren made a mental note to himself that she was a chocolate person. He showed her around, showed her his favorit places and insiders while they slowly got to know each other. Mikasa found out that he was really funny, he liked video games, was currently studying economics and ecology and looked best when laughing, while Eren was just amazed by how awkward she actually was, she said the most stupid-funny things with a face as straight as her hair. he tried his best jokes on her, the whole time wondering what she would look like when she was laughing or at least smiling. She never even once smiled though, the most he could get out of her was a grin but her eyes sparkeled and he felt like he could get run over by a truck right there and still have that same stupid smile on his face. He hoped that wouldn't happen though, since he wanted to spend more time with her.
At some point he noticed how nice her ass looked and also that he was obviously not the only one lusting after her and he wasn't even mad at the others, not even at himself for being one of them, actually he felt more pride than anything else since she choose to hang out with him. Also he was pretty sure not every gaze was directed at her, he didn't choose to wear his best pair of jeans for nothing.
Eren showed her all kind of things; the Alexander Platz, the Fernsehturm and also where you can get the best Döner (as they call it in Germany) and that's at Mustafa's Gemüse Kebab, the queue is always really long though.
As they were chatting a bit Eren found out that Mikasa's moved from the UK to Germany and that she was half Asian, so he wondered how Mikasa could talk almost perfectly Geman.
"I've always been interested in languages, I guess. Forget about math though." She answerde thereupon, he just chuckled.
"How many languages do you speak then?"
"Eight."
Eren was a bit taken aback and startled but he went on. "Wow, that must be pretty cool... I'm kinda impressed, you're making me kinda feel bad about myself right now ya know." He let out a little chuckle again. Mikasa just looked at him, her gaze was honest and clear.
"You know I've been thinking this whole day that you're the amazing one. You told be that you work for Greensteam in your free time right? I've heard of them, don't they support sustainable development and equality on global basis? I mean you do that after uni and that voluntary too!" Suddenly Eren felt warm, he hastily took off his jacket, his breath fastened and it was so difficult to hide his excitement and not scream 'She thinks I'm amazing!'
"Eren are you oka-"
"Yeah... Yeah! Perfectly fine- so tell me more. What languages do you speak then?"
"Ehm, it feels like I'm showing off and I feel bad about it, so I will just tell you to find it out by yourself."
He smiled at her, it was the most genuinine smile she had seen in a while and she thought she spotted a bit of pride in it but shook it off, why would he be proud?
"So, you're basically telling me to spend more time around you right?"
"You're smart." She answered, she was embarrassed, yes, but didn't show it.
Eren changed the subject by asking her if she liked to travel. She told him that she didn't travel a lot but she'd really like to.
"Yes, me too!" Mikasa looked at him for a moment and then down to her feet, he could see, what he thought, was a smile and that just made his day, probably even his week.
Since then they hadn't talked, Eren sometimes saw her in the stairs, sometimes entering her flat, other times carrying groceries. At those times he just wanted to go and help her but decided against it when he noticed her easily carrying four full bags. "As if they were feathers," he had thought. He frequently caught himself wondering what her favorit food was, what music she listened to, which frequently made him feel like a creep.
Hoping for distraction and trying to prevent it from turning into an obsession by taking care of his social life, Eren called his friends over.
They ended up sitting in the living room of his humble flat: Ymir with the guitar on her lap, playing "I see fire", Krista and Armin accompaning her with their vocals and the rest of them, which consisted of Jean, Marco, Sasha, Connie and Eren sitting around them enjoying the music, the beer, the atmosphere. Eren liked those evenings, he would often lose his temper- which was already pretty bad- because of Jean, sometimes Ymir and Krista would just heavily make out ingnoring them completely and other times Armin would get terribly drunk and the cunning types are the worst when drunk, still he liked it.
Eventually they heard someone knock on the door. Hoping that it wasn't the grumpy old lady from downstairs which regulary complained because they had been too noisy, Eren put away his beer and stood up. After opening the door he first felt relieved and then all of a sudden really nervous; Mikasa was the one who knocked.
"Eh hi..." She greeted a little awkwardly but at least not as formal as last time.
"Oh.. hi! What's the matter?"
"So ehm... this is kinda embarrassing..." She started. "Well I was kinda trying to cook something- I'm not really good at it, actually really horrible to be honest- and... broke my pan." She didn't dare to look at Eren, she didn't want to see his amused face, even if he looked best when laughing, so she looked down wiping the sweat off her hands on her jeans. And there it was, finally she heard him trying to hold back his laugher with a hand on his mouth. He then managed to pull himself together and fucused on Mikasa.
"So you want me to lend you a pan?"
"Yes, please?"
"Okay, wait here."
But before Eren could turn around to look for a pan, Jean wrapped his arm around Eren's shoulder trying to say something like 'What's taking so long?' but he never finished the sentence. He stared, dazed, mouth slightly open and eyes more than open. Eren immediatly realized what was going on, he wanted to punch that expression off Jean's face but could he blame him?
"Ehm.. eh..I-I'm J-Jean y-you are?" Usually Jean was more of a smooth kind of guy but now he seemed to have thrown that concept out of the window.
"Mikasa. Nice to meet you."
"M-Me to-"
"Okay, here's the pan." Eren interrupted, Jean hadn't even noticed that Eren had left and since when was he so fast?
"Thank you, I promise I won't break this one." Mikasa responded and was about to turn around but Eren grabbed her shoulder.
"W-wait! Don't you want to hang out with us?"
"Maybe some other time, thanks again, have fun." And then she walked away, leaving Jean in a daze and Eren slightly disappointed. Eren flicked Jean's forhead, which worked, Jean shook his head and immediatly went back to his smooth player- or how Eren called it- 'douchebag ways'.
"Man, why haven't you told me?"
"What?"
"That you've got a new hot neighboor?"
"Oh, that... Why should I have told you?"
"Well, because she's totally my type!" That made Eren slightly irritated.
"Oh, Jean." Eren put a hand on Jean's shoulder. "People with her ass don't go out with guys with your face."
He then left to join the others again, hearing Jean snickering something like 'asshole'.
How Mikasa broke her pan stayed a mistery.
The days passed, Eren met this new girl in his class who was always hanging out with Berth and Reiner, her name was Annie. She was nice, silent, seemed gumpy all the time but nice and her interest in material arts was cool. She told him that he could come along to her training whenever he wanted, so they agreed on Friday.
Eventually Friday came by. Eren accompanied Annie to her training, it was something comepletly new to him and it was terribly cool seeing them fight. Annie showed him around a bit, told him that she hadn't a partner, also that she was the best of her class so a lot of students were already a bit scared of her. Annie seemed different. 'She must really like matreial arts.' Eren tought smiling.
Annie turned to Eren. "I suggest you to take a crash course and later fight me!"
"Okaaaay...?" Eren answered, taken aback by her sudden enthusiasm.
He did as Annie told him, it was also her who gave him the lessions, he could confirm that Annie was indeed very skilled. After some time Eren could grasp the concept and he had fun, he decided to make that his new hobby.
"You're talented." Annie told him, "For today we are finished, now as I promised; let's fight." She took a battle position and waited for Eren to do the same. It didn't take long for the others to create a circle around them- so Annie really did have that kind of reputation.
The end of the battle wasn't really surprising, Eren lost, Annie kicked his ass to the Mars and back. She seemed disappointed, she wanted someone who could challenge her and that someone was just about to walk in.
Eren was more than surprised when he saw Mikasa entering the room, she had sportswear on, which consisted of shorts and a T-shirt. Indeed she never failed to impress him.
"You're new here?" Annie asked, which was clearly meant for Mikasa to answer. She didn't even greet her, well she never ever greeted anyone but Annie surprisingly seemed to be interested in her.
"Ehm, yes."
"You seem to have experience wanna fight me?" Annie suggested.
Mikasa agreed before noticing Eren. "Oh, you're here too. Hi." She waved at him.
"Yeah, I tought a little workout wouldn't do any harm. That's Annie by the way," he pointed at her. "she took me here, what about you? How did you find this place?"
"My uncle recommended this gym."
"Oh, I see..." Eren rubbed his neck, trying to find more conversation topics.
"Yeah... Well, I'm gonna warm myself up, Annie's waiting."
It didn't take long for the fight to begin. Everyone gathered again but this fight was different. Both Annie and Mikasa were skilled and it was exciting. It looked like a fight from an action movie; precise movements, power, agility and speed. The outcome wasn't that exciting though, there was no winner, no final showdown, the girls just mutually agreed that they were to exhausted but they had satisfied grins on their faces. Eren could sense that some kind of friendly rivlary was born that day.
Mikasa and Eren ended up going home together after saying goodbye to Annie. They both decided to come again. They didn't talk much on the way to their apartment complex, Mikasa said that she had bought a new pan and that when they arrived at home she'd give him his back. Eren garanteed that he would cook for her anytime and that when Armin dropped by at his place he'd call her over because then he would have to make dinner anyway. She hesitated at first but eventually accepted his offer, then they parted ways.
'It's frustrating.' Eren thought everytime they seperated, everytime they had to enter their individual apartments. Why couldn't they just be together in one? Oh, right. They weren't even a thing to begin with. Suddenly a rather important thought crossed Eren's mind.
'Does she already have someone?' He realized that that girl made him a mess, he never even asked if she already had someone. He shook it off though, if she wasn't single then why hadn't anyone visited her until now? Wait... Why hadn't anyone ever visited her? Eren did consider a long-distance relationship but he realized that in any case she might have been feeling lonely. That day Eren decided to hang out with her more, which he had already decided since the first time they met but now determination scared away the fear.