Hanji had been bugging him for the past hour or so.

"Why won't you come with me to the fair? Yesterday you did, and we barely spent any time together!"

Levi glared at her, gray eyes boring into her skull.

"Shut the fuck up, shitty glasses. Who the hell would want to spend any time with you? I wouldn't."

The thirteen year old boy responded grumpily, referring to the huge glasses Hanji wore all of the time. He was absolutely not going to be persuaded to go to the fair once more, with what had occurred the day before.

"Did something happen?"

Hanji asked suspiciously, eyebrows rising. God, he couldn't hide anything from her. But he only grunted.

"I have better things to do, like homework. There's no time for some shitty fair."

"But we didn't get that much homework, I'm sure you could finish it. You're really smart, so..."

Levi's eyes narrowed marginally, and he full out scowled at the whining female before him.

"Compliments won't get you anywhere with me, Hanji. You should know that. I'm not going. Here, you can even have all fifty tickets that I didn't use. Now get out."

He rummaged into his desk drawer and pulled out the bag of tickets. Hanji sighed, defeated. He seemed really serious and really grumpy, so she made her way reluctantly towards the door.

"Well if you just so happen to change your mind-"

"I won't."

The door shut quietly behind her retreating form.

Levi sighed, leaning back into his chair, exhausted. He wouldn't go back to the fair. There would most likely be a repeat of what happened the day before, and Levi most definitely couldn't handle that. He didn't want to snap.

The boy grumbled to himself inaudibly. His parents were going out someplace today, leaving the thirteen year old alone in the house. As long as Levi was back in the apartment by 6 pm, he could go anywhere he pleased. Dragging his feet into the kitchen, Levi squatted down so that he could open the cupboard beneath the sink where they kept the cups. His whole family was a collection of short people (In both size and temper), and they kept all of the essentials in the places beneath the sink and areas around there so they could reach them easily.

Levi chose a black mug with a band of white near the base and near the top edge of it, placing it gently on the table. Rummaging in the cabinets, he finally found what he was looking for- a box of little paper bags filled with the powder base for hot chocolate. Levi had never actually had a sweet tooth, but he was really feeling it today, for some unexplained reason. He cut the paper bag open in one, neat cut with the black scissors that were far too large for his small hands, and careful not the make a mess, slowly tipped the powdery, brown, chocolate-smelling contents of the white paper bag into the black mug. Though there were instructions printed on the paper of the bag, Levi disregarded them entirely. He would do things his own way. Pouring cold milk into the mug, Levi pondered what he was really doing with his life. He had little to no social life, and he cleaned for fun. There were only two friends he trusted fully. There was always Petra, he supposed, who seemed to admire him greatly (though he couldn't see why), Gunther, Auruo, and Erd, but they all transferred schools after elementary.

Now, he only had Hanji (who was in his grade), and Erwin (he was in eighth grade). Levi absentmindedly mixed the soon-to-be hot chocolate with a spoon, then put the mixture in the microwave to heat.

After a minute or so, he took the hot drink out of the microwave and set it on the counter, sitting in one of the chairs next to it. Levi looked into the mug, seeing his own swirling, brownish reflection in the muddy looking liquid. It was missing something. Peppermint? No, but it could use a bit of the minty taste peppermint gave. He dug around for a while until he found the red and white striped candy, then just popped the thing, as a whole, into the cup. Never mind crushing the candy, it was alright if it was whole.

Next, Levi decided that it needed marshmallows. It wouldn't be in the bottom cabinets because that was where all of the essentials went, and who the fuck would consider marshmallows an essential? The boy jumped precariously onto the counter, walking down it easily. Opening the cupboard pressed against the wall, Levi immediately found what he'd wanted and grabbled the bag of mini-marshmallows. He began to turn around so he could jump down from the marble surface of the table, but he'd calculated wrong, and instead he toppled right over the ledge.

Instinctively, he'd covered the back of his head and no damage had been down there. But Levi was hurting everywhere else, and his back felt like he was dying. Shaking off the aching pain in his lower back, he stood, and groaning, felt around his back for any obvious damage. When he felt no jagged or misplaced bones, Levi muttered angrily to himself. What a stupid chain of events. Just because he was too short to reach the fucking marshmallows, he was suffering; in physical and mental pain. He was angry at himself for miscalculating his steps, but other than that, it was all his height's fault. Fucking height. Fucking cabinets.

His falling off the counter should have been enough to warn him not to leave the apartment that day, but Levi was stubborn. He wasn't going to listen to anyone's orders, be them from his parents, teachers, or his subconscious.

It was a cool, drafty day, one of those in which the beautifully colored leaves from the trees just slowly fluttered down, ignoring the rest of the world. A typical Autumn day where Levi lived. The boy made his way down to the apartment complex's garage areas, stuffing his undersized hands into his black coat's pockets. No, no, it wasn't that Levi could drive any kind of car. He was way too young. Besides, his mother had taken the car to her workplace, so it wasn't like there would be a car there anyways.

Punching in the code (4327) to open the garage, Levi sighed. It was, so far, an achingly boring day, if you forgot everything about the falling-off-the-counter incident, which Levi fully intended to dismiss wholly from his mind anyways. It had been extremely clumsy on his part, and Levi was certainly not one to be clumsy.

Heading towards the corner of the large, cold room in which they usually kept their vehicles, Levi grabbed his bicycle, neglecting to wear any kind of helmet. He didn't believe it was truly necessary, considering he'd pretty much mastered the art of bicycle riding on his first try, and at an extremely young age. So young he couldn't even remember it now. Mounting the two wheeled bike nimbly, the blacked haired teen cycled out of the garage, stopping only once to press the button that closed the garage.

Levi was heading to the only place in which he could get a moment's peace – where it was beautifully quiet and blissfully, nobody was there to bother him. The library. He planned on doing a bit of studying for the midterms coming up. Levi was not in any shape or form a great student; he mostly got C's, maybe the occasional B- or D+. He just felt, that with nothing better to do, he may as well spend time doing schoolwork.

Levi pursed his lips. The library was usually filled with people – young brats to annoying 16 to 18 year olds (who thought that they were the rulers of the universe), but Levi suspected the library would be practically deserted of any kinds of annoyances, because those annoyances would all be hanging out at that shitty excuse of a fair.

He closed his eyes briefly, letting the bike swerve slightly, then opened them. The library was in view now, all pretty with its brick walls covered with curling green ivy. Levi stopped himself at the sidewalk before it. The library on Maria road was actually really beautiful. It looked almost like it had just appeared out of a fantasy book, with its cobblestone pathways and luscious green bushes. (Though the green was slowly fading out as winter approached.)

It had slightly crumbling walls, like the edges were being slowly chipped away, bit by bit as the years passed. Levi locked his bicycle into the bike rack and grasped the handle of the door, entering the warm library.

As expected, it was extremely quiet, and recently polished floors gleamed under his shoes. Levi almost felt the need to take his shoes off to preserve such beautiful cleanliness, but didn't. Although he didn't really care what others thought of him, he needed to make sure that his socks didn't get any holes in them – no matter how smooth the floor seemed to be.

Sighing quietly, Levi made his way over to the stairs. They were colored red with a worn down carpet, and the color had a nice, faded look to it. The staircase winded slightly; only just enough so that Levi couldn't see what was at the other end.

Other than the sound of his soft footsteps on the stairs, there was barely any noise in the library, though he could hear the faint clicking of a frantic student typing away at their computer. Levi could almost see their worried faces as they tried desperately to get whatever essay they had to finish done. Or maybe they were just playing online video games. Either way, Levi couldn't imagine himself caring any less than he did now, so he merely ignored the sound and continued climbing the winding staircase.

He reached the top effortlessly and made his way to the Biology books section. His class had been learning about diffusion and osmosis and all that crap that he didn't actually have to know, and Levi never listened. It was time to catch up.

It was half an hour later, and Levi still hadn't found a good book. Maybe he would just give up for now; read a good fiction novel and then come back. That sounded like a good idea.

So, with this new plan in mind, Levi turned on his heel and walked down the aisles of books to the fiction section.

As he approached the fiction section, Levi was surprised to find a boy, maybe six years old – sitting by himself at the foot of the shelf of books. Finding it not really that necessary to say hello to the boy, Levi instead shuffled around him in search of a good book, looking down first. If there was a book that looked appealing down on the bottom shelf, then he would grab it. He had no intention to have to reach up, maybe even jump, to get a piece of literature. That piece of literature may very well be shitty, too, so Levi wasn't taking any chances.

"Hi."

Levi nearly jumped (but didn't) when the boy suddenly spoke. He turned unimpressed gray eyes down on the boy, only grunting noncommittally in reply. A short stretch of silence, then-

"What's your name?"

Levi only scoffed.

"Answer your own question first, then come back and ask me again."

The boy seemed to puzzle over this and its meaning for a few seconds before turning beautiful turquoise eyes over to Levi, who didn't even look at the boy, opting to continue skimming the shelves for a good looking book.

"What?"

Levi rolled his eyes. Typical brats. Couldn't even tell one piece of shit from the next. He didn't reply, just took a book off the shelf and examined its cover. They tell you not to tell a book by its cover, but Levi really couldn't care less about that statement now, because the book's cover art and title were extremely sappy.

Romance is in the Air

By Stella DeCravolo

Fucking romantic fiction books. They always had the stupidest titles and the most idiotic cover art. This one depicted the silhouette of a lady with long, wavy hair and a man with an almost comically well-built body embracing in the orange sunset on a beach, with rose petals fluttering across them. It was horrid. Like seriously – what the fuck.

Disgustedly, Levi moved to put the book back, but the brat's tiny hand stopped him.

"Don't judge a book by its cover, Mr. George."

Who the fuck was George...? Levi repeated the sentence aloud, and the brat only gave him a surprised look.

"You said you didn't have a name, so I named you. You look like a George."

"I never said anything even remotely like that. I told you to tell me your name, and then ask me what my name was again, idiot. Or if you want to keep that fucking top-secret information from me, I'll just call you Fred."

The brown haired boy looked as if he were pondering this for a moment before nodding, seemingly not liking the name 'Fred'.

"Okay, that makes sense. My name's Eren. What about you?"

"Levi."

"That's a nice name, but can I call you George?"

"Can I call you Fred?"

"...Fine."

"No, a little bit to the right! No, no, not that right! The other right!"

"The other right...? It's called left."

"Oh."

The brown haired, turquoise eyed brat was on Levi's shoulders.

Eren had wanted a book on the second-to-the-top shelf, but neither of them were tall enough to reach said book. Levi had suggested that he stand on the six year old boy, but Eren had soon declined, saying that Levi would be far too heavy. Levi had twitched, annoyed by the insult, but Eren had frantically backpedaled and said that he was heavy because 'all of those muscles'. Levi had been skeptical, but he didn't actually care that much. He knew he was thin, so the brat was probably just too weak to carry him.

So they'd come to the conclusion that Eren would go on top of Levi's shoulders. They wibbled and wobbled and moved in every which way, until finally Eren got his hands on the book he'd wanted.

"George! I got it!"

"That's real nice, Fred."

Eren pouted, then reached up to grab another book when suddenly he pitched backwards. Stupidly, he grabbed the shelf for purchase.

Now, the shelves of books reached halfway to the ceiling in this particular area of the library. That was still a good deal taller than Levi, because the ceiling was high and huge. But the shelves were made of that cheap, skin colored metal material that a lot of libraries used, so it could be moved easily.

The bookshelf swayed precariously for one, frightening moment that Levi would remember for years to come, then teetered backwards onto the two boys.

Immediately after their fall began, Levi brought his hands above his head and grabbed Eren by his waist, pulling him down so the boy was pressed against his chest. This way, Levi would take all of the damage and Eren would be okay (though maybe a few books could cascade down on his face.)

Levi turned in the nick of time, hands sprawled out to protect himself and the boy crying out beneath him. The black haired teen was not invincible, thus he was practically crushed under the weight of the bookshelf. He was struggling to hold it up by himself, and his arms were growing weak. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It had been a stupid idea to come to the library; a stupid idea to hoist Eren onto his shoulders. It had been sort of impulsive really, and Levi couldn't bring himself to say no to Eren when he'd asked him to help him get the book – it was all because of those damn, pleading eyes. It was stupid that he was so stupidly short.

Suddenly, the weight of the bookshelf was miraculously lifted. Two people, one with a red scarf and another with short blond hair on either side were pulling the bookcase up. They had come within moments notice, though Levi had felt like he'd been holding up the world for all eternity.

Eren was not harmed, though he was bawling messily.

"Eren?! Eren! Are you okay?"

A female voice, with a slightly Asian accent.

"Mikasaaaa..."

Eren wailed, literally leaping into the arms of what seemed to be an older sister, though Levi suspected that if the two were actually related, they were either distantly so or one of them had been adopted. Mikasa, as Eren had identified, glared at Levi as if it were all his fault.

"Stay away from Eren. You cause trouble."

She growled quietly, then walked away. The blond haired boy had smiled apologetically at Levi.

"Thanks for helping him out,"

He said, and gave Levi a small smile, turning to catch up with the other two.

Eren called out a,

"Bye, George."

From his position in Mikasa's arms.

"Bye, Fred."