It started the very first night Eren moved into 3B. He was sore and dusty from spending the better part of the day lugging his boxes up three flights of stairs courtesy of the lifts being out of service. He'd lost track of the time and forgotten to buy food for dinner, all his stuff was still packed and sealed in boxes, and the least thing he could do before collapsing on his mattress on an empty stomach was treat himself to a warm shower on his first night away from the parental coop.
The bathroom was small, with space enough just for a shower and a toilet and a sink with twin cupboards underneath. Still, the previous tenants had left everything thankfully clean, and when he twisted the knobs open and stepped into the shower stream he was surprised to find the pressure and temperature very much to his liking. He never could get comfortable in other people's showers, it was always the worst part of sleeping over someone else's house.
He tipped his head back, shut his eyes and let the deliciously hot spray melt the tension that had been tying knots in his muscles all day. Here he was, finally his own man. No more curfews, no more "my house, my rules", free to do and not do as he pleased, king of his own castle. If he wanted to burst out in song at the top of his lungs there wasn't a damn soul in the world who could stop him.
So that's exactly what he did.
"This hit that ice cold, Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold," he sang, lathering the shampoo into his scalp.
"This one for them hood girls, them good girls, straight masterpiece! Stylin', while in, livin' it up in the city. Got Chucks on with Saint Laurent, gotta kiss myself I'm so pretty!"
"I'm too hot!" he sang.
"Hot damn," someone sang back.
Wait.
Someone sang back.
Eren froze, and, after recovering from the horrifying millisecond where he thought someone was in his bathroom with him, listened for the source of the voice. Come to think of it, he thought the water had sounded a little stronger in his ears a short while after he'd stepped in the shower. Now he realised it wasn't his shower playing up - it was next door's shower running in conjunction with his.
Judging by the closeness of the voice, the other person was also showering just on the other side of the wall to Eren's right.
Well shit, Eren thought. Maybe his castle wasn't quite as *his* as he'd have liked. Even so, it was no big deal in the grand scheme of things, was it? So the showers were a little too close and the walls a little too thin and the guy (and it was a guy, Eren had heard him quite clearly) next door had a thing for impromptu shower duets. Considering the absolute horror stories he'd heard from friends and acquaintances, he wasn't going to let something like this dampen his spirits (no pun intended).
Besides, Eren thought, smiling at his faint reflection in the shower box glass, nothing wrong with a little neighbourly competition.
"Call the police and the fireman! I'm too hot!" he continued.
"Hot damn," his neighbour replied again, right on cue.
"Make a dragon wanna retire, man!"
And on and on it went, their voices mingling in the chorus, Eren surprised how genuinely happy he was to have someone singing along with him.
It kind of became a thing after that.
Of course they wouldn't catch each other all the time - Eren was still a college student after all, with a daily routine as predictable as next week's lotto numbers, but in general he found his neighbour preferred to shower in the evenings a little before the clock hit double digits, and more often than not, that suited Eren just fine. One or the other of them would step in, start belting out a tune, and find someone else joining in at the refrain or, if their timing was good, the chorus.
They never made conversation, never even saw each other - it seemed to Eren that the man spent very little time in his apartment at all. Either that or he just lived very quietly, which would have spooked Eren more had he not known how mean the man's falsetto could be, given a good lead-in.
Around three months had passed since Eren had moved into the apartment, and as the weather cooled and the trees started to shed their leaves, he began to take more and more of his showers in the evening. It just felt right to step out of the nippy air and into the shower, warmed to his toes by the steaming water and the deep timbre of the voice on the other side of the shower wall.
Today he'd gone straight to the library after class to grab whatever books hadn't yet been checked out for the damned essay due the day after tomorrow. Truth be told, he was feeling mellow and sentimental and a little lonely, like choc fudge pudding, all warm and gooey inside.
"I really can't stay," he began to croon, squeezing a few dollops of body gel onto his shower puff.
"I've got to go away. This evening has been so very nice," he continued as he stretched an arm out and scrubbed himself. If he made it a point not to get any suds in or around his ears, all the better to listen for the banging of a shower door or the twisting of taps, well. No one was around to see it.
"My mother will start to worry."
A thud, a squeak, and– yes, there was his singing partner, right on time as usual, by some happy cyclic strike of coincidence.
"Beautiful, what's your hurry?"
"My father will be pacing the floor," Eren answered, grinning so wide despite himself, he was a little concerned the guy would be able to hear it in his voice.
"Listen to the fireplace roar."
"So really I'd better scurry."
"Beautiful, please don't hurry."
"But maybe just a half a drink more…"
"Put some records on while I pour."
"I really can't stay."
"Baby, don't hold out," the man pleaded, so earnestly Eren might have believed him, and he really did have a wonderfully rich, deep voice. Had it ever sounded quite this sensual though? It was…starting to do things to Eren.
Starting to make him remember how long it had been since he'd indulged in some proper TLC, busy as he'd been with the move and semester and attempting to drive the metaphorical bicycle of life with the training wheels off.
But no, he wasn't going to do it. He'd never even met the man. He didn't know anything about him besides the swell and dip of his voice, the way he would almost spit out the harsh vowels in rock songs like he didn't give a damn where they landed, how he would murmur and whisper through a ballad like he was calling a lover back to bed. And all the while he must have been touching himself, running his hands up and down his wet body, Eren couldn't know for sure but he thought from the way his voice echoed that he preferred his showers hot too, all that steam in the room, must get his muscles nice and loose and limber –
He ought to have said "no, no, no, sir" but it came out more like "yes, yes, yes," and suddenly the singing had stopped, jarringly loud like a scratch on a record, nothing left to fill the silence but the hiss of the shower growing colder by the minute.
He fucked up. Oh god, he knew he fucked up. His stomach has swooped to his feet and out through his toes to get sucked down the drain with the soap suds and the stray hairs and possibly also his dignity. What would happen now? Clearly the guy had heard him, they'd never stopped mid-song before and there was no way the wall was thick enough to cover up that little mishap. Was the guy angry? Was he going to bust down Eren's door as soon as he was dry and dressed? Did this count as sexual harassment? Holy shit, there was no way Eren could afford that, and Armin hadn't even started any of his law subjects, let alone qualify to be his representative…
More importantly, would he never get to hear this man's beautiful voice again?
He rinsed himself off as quick as he could, semi hard-on be damned, and turned to screw shut the taps so he could get the hell out of dodge. Maybe if he showered at the uni gym for a week, all would be forgotten (or at least forgiven) when he returned, and they could go back to being…shower singing buddies, or whatever it was they had going on.
"Where are you going, Eren? We were doing so well," the voice piped up.
Eren squeaked, fingers skewing the tap the wrong way, yelping as the water turned icy cold around him.
"H-How do you know my name?" He asked as he shakily shut off the water. He felt even more pathetic now, shivering and clutching at his arms with pruny fingers.
"You have some really loud friends," the man answered.
Eren thought back to the handful of times he'd had his friends over for study sessions. Study sessions that had rapidly devolved into fighting over what movie to watch and hurling insults at each other over Mario Kart. He'd thought the man had been away, there hadn't been a peep from his apartment…
"Tell you what, Eren, why don't you towel off, get dressed and come over for tea? I think it's high time we introduced ourselves properly, don't you?" the man asked, and now Eren was extremely confused and more than a little terrified. Armin had badgered him into watching enough episodes of Hannibal to know where this was potentially heading.
"Actually, um. I was on my way out. For a jog. To the shops, I need to go buy stuff for dinner," he blurted out through chattering teeth.
"Oh, but it's cold outside," the man replied, and he was smiling, definitely smiling. "How about this, then. You get dressed, knock on the living room wall when you're ready. I'll come over with dinner. My chicken pot pie is an old family recipe. Best in the country, no bull."
Why, oh why did it have to be chicken pot pie? Eren had his mother's culinary integrity on the line, now. Not to mention, he really did want to meet the man behind the voice that had, in retrospect, kept him company and staved off a little of the loneliness and apprehension of living by himself for the first time.
Besides, he probably did owe the man some sort of apology, or at least an explanation, however embarrassing it would surely be. And if he did turn out to be a cannibalistic serial killer, at least Eren would have the home advantage.
Several hours, a few glasses of wine and some truly cosmic spoonfuls of chicken pot pie later, Eren was sitting on his couch, his neighbour - Levi's - arm slung lightly over his shoulder, getting schooled at Mario Kart by this ridiculously attractive man who was somehow still winning while playing one-handed –how is he even real– feeling happier and warmer than he'd had since he can't even remember when.
He soon discovered that it was a lot easier to harmonise with your shower buddy when there's no longer a wall between you, only water and steam and a hint of something electric in the air.