Eren had been on edge ever since the incident that had occurred on Wednesday. It had freaked him out, made him much more cautious than usual. He didn't like the thought of any of his subjects watching him. Or anyone, now that he thought about it. It made him feel squirmy and nervous, which made the dark feeling squirmy and nervous in term. It wasn't a good feeling.
Briefly, he entertained the thought that maybe some of them were uneasy, constantly anxious at the feeling of being watched and followed but never being able to do anything about it. He shook the thought away almost as soon as it occurred to him. That didn't matter.
Still…
Despite his disquiet, he couldn't help but stop outside of class 3A, where he knew Historia's sixth period class was. Geography with Mr. Hughes. It gave him pause, and his fingers twitched at his side. It was such a shame, he had left his phone tucked beneath his books, all the way back in his own class. And Historia was looking so pretty today, with her nice blonde locks clipped back with sparkly blue and green clasps that made her eyes stand out.
He chanced a small peek into the classroom, on his way past. The door was wide open and he could see her, tucked away in the corner. She used to sit right up at the front in this class, much easier to see. Perhaps they had been put in a seating plan – yeah, that sounded about right. Historia would usually sit with Jordan during this class, and now they were on opposite sides of the room. Eren knew that they hadn't fallen out, because Jordan was a gossipy bitch and would have posted about it.
Mr. Hughes probably got too distracted, trying to teach his year eleven class about maps and what not, but being distracted by the little angel that sat right across from him, wide eyes constantly staring at him intently, drinking in his every word. And it would have made him flustered, would have made him think once or twice about asking Historia to "stay back after class, would you, I need to have a discussion with you about the work", and then...
But that was naughty.
Eren smirked, but wiped it off his face when he accidentally locked eyes with one of the students sitting in front row – Nathan, was it? Damn, what was with all these people looking at him lately? Staring him in the eye. Did they know something he didn't? No, impossible. He hadn't done anything too suspicious lately. And Mikasa wouldn't expose him like that, not for something that he could go to jail for.
The paranoia teared at him, so he clenched his teeth and hurried back to class. He felt like the whole school's eyes were watching him as he walked through the empty corridors. Something about the desolation made Eren feel more exposed than ever, and he burned under the stares that were not there.
"What do you mean you're not going?" Eren whined. "You have to go."
"No, but I do have to cook dinner that night. Mum and dad both won't be here on Friday, remember?" Mikasa said.
Ugh. What was the point in having a sister if she never did anything for you? Well, sure… Mikasa took care of him, he guessed. She made meals whenever their parents were busy (which was most of the time), and made sure he didn't spend too much time holed up in his room without seeing the sun (which he actually didn't appreciate too much, sometimes it was nice to be left alone), and made sure that he didn't burn himself spending too much time in the sun (even though he tanned rather than burned, thank you Turkish genes!) But yeah. So she could do all of that, but she wouldn't go to a party for him. Mean.
"You just have to go for like, an hour or two. Invite Armin over. You could both get dolled up, steal some of mum's makeup or something so you look nice. Actually, forget that, Armin probably has some."
"He's not a crossdresser, Eren."
Eren blinked. "With that hair-? No, never mind. You just have to go and like, snap a few pictures for me."
"Eww, don't get me involved in your gross hobby. I'm not a stalker." Could have fooled Eren, with the amount of time she spent scrolling through Annie Leonhart's Instagram profile… Not that he checked his sister's internet history or anything.
"C'mon, I had no idea what happened at the last party. Apparently, Ymir hooked up with someone – who may or may not have been a girl – and someone tried to get Reiner to smoke weed with him." According to Reiner's status, anyways. "I couldn't really see what was going on because most of the pictures were dark, blurry and clearly taken on a shitty android camera. Or maybe, like, the iPhone 2 or something. That's how bad they were. And you know how a lot of people don't put the really juicy stuff online, because it always gets taken down. I need this, Mikasa. You have the latest iPhone, it would be in such high definition. Plus, you'd be able to show me everything."
Mikasa finally looked up from her book, eyes narrowed. She was looking at Eren as if he were something that got stuck under shoe. But he'd had worse. And he knew that he couldn't sink and lower than what Mikasa had already seen – and she still loved him and took care of him, unconditionally. Why couldn't everyone be like her. Granted, they were siblings, and obligated to love each other – But. Whatever.
"Why don't you just go yourself, if you're so excited about it." Oh, Mikasa. Eren let out a breathy sigh, laughing softly.
"Don't be absurd. If I went to that party, I would get happily white girl wasted before half past eight, that's when everyone's just arriving, and I would publicly embarrass myself and you before half the people there had even had a pre's (so you know that they'd remember it), because you would be the one that would make me put my clothes back on and drag me home, and everyone at the party would see you with me. Going home with me. Imagine how that would look. Because you know that we don't even look related, so I really wonder what they would think about you leaving with the guy that just did something to embarrass himself horribly. Then, you would have to tend to my raging hangover in the morning, and try to fumble for excuses to tell mum and dad about my sorry state. And it'll be less unbelievable if you're telling lies for me, because you'd want to leave all of the good excuses for yourself, later down the track. And then mum will figure it out and we'd both get in trouble for lying and drinking. Our parents will think that you were hungover as well, since you would have bags under your eyes and bloodshot eyes from taking care of me all night and holding my hair back while I puke my guts out to the porcelain gods. Imagine that, the first time you get in trouble for drinking on a night where you didn't even get a chance to. We'd both be grounded until we were twenty-one and actually old enough to drink, and you know that I wouldn't mind being grounded because I don't have any friends to go out and see anyway."
Eren paused for effect. "Do you want that, Mikasa? Because I think that a much better option is for me to stay right here, free to masturbate as loudly as I want in the empty house while you go and have fun, as well as snap a few cheeky pics here and there. Just say they're for snapchat, or something."
Mikasa cast him a wary look. "I don't know what to say."
"Say yes."
"How about I just say, 'get a life', instead. You're such a creep."
"And proud."
"If you do this for me, I won't ever talk to you again."
"Tempting offer. Still no."
"That's selfish." Then, Eren's face split out into a grin. "You know… Last Friday, at Lange's party, apparently Annie left with some girl called Bailey. That's pretty interesting, don't you think?"
He watched as Mikasa's pretty face furrowed up. "Bailey? Annie told me that she didn't talk to that girl anymore."
Eren knew that. He had been listening on the other line. Why hadn't Mikasa learned not to use the landline for important calls like that? Or any calls, really, she had a mobile for a reason.
"Yeah. I don't really know what happened with those two after they left. Who knows? Maybe the same thing will happen this Friday." He had struck a nerve. A flurry of emotions flickered over Mikasa's face, ranging from anger to jealousy to hurt.
Yeah, Mikasa was going to go to that party. And even if she didn't take any pictures, Eren was sure that she would tell him all about what happened with Annie and that other girl – whether she was crying, or yelling at him for misperceiving something and making her distrust Annie. Eren already knew what he would say in either one of those situations, when they happened.
Everything was so fucked.
"I can't believe you've done this to me," Eren griped. He was lying flat on the sofa at an uncomfortable angle, feet high up in the air and arms dangling of the side.
"I've done nothing to you," Mikasa countered. "And if you think that I have, then you're even more delusional and self-centred than I thought."
"Doubt it."
Life was over. Love was over. Nothing made sense anymore.
When Mikasa had come home that night after the party (well, into the early AM's) Eren had silently snuck into her bedroom, ready to offer a shoulder to cry on. Or, at the least, Mikasa wouldn't yell at him if she was too drunk, or if she thought their parents were home. He wasn't expecting what she told him.
She had hesitated at first, "I don't know if I should tell you, I don't want to know what you'd do with that information – what? Of course me and Annie are fine. You were the one jumping to conclusions." And that had piqued Eren's curiosity, because if she was too distracted to be mad about anything, well. He had to know what she knew.
It came out the next morning. According to Mikasa, Historia had hooked up with Ymir, of all people. And Eren hadn't been there to see it. And Mikasa hadn't taken pictures – "you disgusting little pervert, of course I didn't" – and Eren hadn't seen it.
He was a lot more dejected than he originally thought he would be. Maybe there was a reason for his exceptional interest in Historia, beyond just wanting to know about her? Maybe he had even been in love with her. Mikasa seemed to think so, with how reluctant she was about telling him.
But he quickly forgot about that when Mikasa blushed deeply and admitted that, yes, she and Annie were in the room when Historia and Ymir had tumbled in, hands all over each other, Historia's lipstick probably smeared, some of it on Ymir's neck… Eren had to stop himself before he salivated. Or got hard. But that was probably the reason that Mikasa hadn't yelled at him last night. Clearly she had been distracted by whatever it was she saw. Eren had never wished that he was his sister but he would have done anything to see that sight.
But, wow. It was unfair. Ymir wasn't even that attractive, in fact she was kind of scary looking. Plus she used to be related to Marco, second cousin or something like that. Thinking about Historia with a relative of Marco was kind of a turn off, now that Eren thought about it. It was all fine when it was all in his head, but – then, a horrific thought dawned on him. How long had Historia and Ymir been together? Had this happened before? Without Eren knowing?
It was almost like being a kid and realising that all of the TV shows and movies that you watched were fake. That they were just actors, playing out a story, or lines on a screen if it was animated. What else didn't he know? It made his head hurt, thinking about all the secrets. How dare anyone keep secrets from him.
"I don't know how to handle this, 'kasa. I don't like it." Belatedly, Eren realised that Mikasa was gone, and he was talking to himself. Oops. He didn't know if he was quite ready to reach that level of crazy yet.
Eren decided that he could just get over it. He would have to dig deeper to find out what else that people were keeping from him. He was sure that he could guess Bertolt's security password for his email if he tried really hard. From there, he could access all his other accounts, temporarily change his passwords and mess around for a bit. Eren would be able to see his chat history and all that.
Or he could just nick Sasha's phone. She always left it out, every class, just near the edge of the table. It would be a piece of cake to snatch it up, then return it a few days after. Plus, she had a Samsung so she wouldn't be able to use 'Find my iPhone', which had given him a scare after he stole Hange's phone a year ago.
Sounded like a plan. He'd have to write this down.
