There are certain times in this thing called life where you can have something really good going for you at one moment, only to have it all go wrong the next. It's like karma is standing on your front porch, just waiting for you to open the door and let him in. "You've had it good for too long," he would say, "and we need to change that," because that's the lurking danger involved in relationships; you let people in. You let them see the sides of yourself that you weren't even aware you had in the first place, sides you'd hate to show to anyone else but the ones you love. It's because of that, being in love is a strength just as much as it is a vulnerability, and Eren has had the unfortunate pleasure of having karma pay him a visit.

I felt bad for the kid, I really did. Sure, he had his spurts of being annoying as Hell, but today, he was somewhat tolerable. Even though I learned more than I probably should have about his relationship with his ex-boyfriend, hearing Eren talk for so long made me feel closer to him. Great, that's just great. All I ever needed in life was to feel a connection with this idiot.

With my fingers gravitating toward my skull, I started massaging my forehead therapeutically. Not being able to completely comprehend how one person could be so disgusting was giving me a headache. Not missing a beat, Eren must have taken my discomfort to notice, because he asked, "Hey, are you okay? I know I kind of said a lot. Maybe it was too much...?"

Lifting my head only slightly, the spaces between my fingers giving me the allowance to peer at him, I reassured him by saying, "You're fine and you didn't talk too much. I'm just trying to wrap my head around everything you've said, that's all."

Eren nodded. "It's a lot to take in, isn't it? My new roommate didn't believe me, when I first told him about it. Then again, he doesn't believe a lot of the things I tell him, so it's whatever."

I didn't feel like asking what he'd meant by that, because I didn't feel like getting into an entirely new conversation. This had been the latest I'd stayed at the shop in a while, and I just wanted to finish locking up so I could head home already, but that wasn't going to happen if Eren and I kept chatting away like two girls at a slumber party.

Sensing my sudden onset of impatience, Eren sighed an apology and slid off of the tattoo chair. "Sorry. I didn't realize how long it would take me to tell you everything. But thanks for listening."

I followed suit by standing up from my stool, only to realize that my lower back had gone stiff. Damn, my posture must have been horrible. "Don't mention it," I said, almost disinterestedly. "I wouldn't have agreed to listen to you talk if I didn't want to listen. I would have just told you to stop."

"That's true," Eren agreed, his words being carried by a small laugh. "I guess I should ask how much I owe you now, huh? And do you prefer cash or credit? Either way, I have both."

"Neither."

Eren was visibly taken aback by my statement, so much so that he briefly became a character in a television sitcom. Looking to his left as if there was someone to express his confusion to, he turned to me a second later and asked, "I'm sorry? No cash, or credit? Do you only take checks, then?"

Oh, Eren's reaction had been too good for words. Before clarifying what I'd meant, I folded my arms and shook my head. "Neither, meaning don't owe me anything."

The face that Eren made when he heard that would have been the cue for the audience's laugh track to play. Was it really that difficult for him to understand? I was going to remove his tattoo for free, it wasn't that big of a deal...or maybe it was. Just then, I'd reached the realization that no more than two weeks ago, I wouldn't have been caught dead agreeing to do a tattoo removal. Add a little bit of time and a dumb kid with an aggressive attitude to the equation, and you had me offering one up for free. I started questioning my sanity.

"But that doesn't make any sense," Eren persisted, and he was right. It didn't make any sense. "Of course I owe you for this, Levi. You're not just doing me a favor, this is your job. I'm not going to not pay you for doing your job."

Unfolding my arms, I held a finger up to him. "Correction: I am a tattoo artist, therefore, my job is to provide high-quality designs and skilled artistry to my clients. Removing tattoos is not a part of my job. It is not in my contract and it does not coincide with my policies. If I choose to refuse your payment, that is my choice and you have no other option than to accept it. Understood?" I probably could have phrased that differently, but the fact of the matter was that it got my point across. I was being absolutely serious, and no money meant no money - not even in check form.

Everything about Eren's demeanor screamed hesitance. He looked as if he wanted to speak, but just as his lips parted and began to quiver with willingness, he seemed to have succumb to a state of severe contemplation. Finally, after his third or fourth attempt, he managed to spit out a response. "I...don't know what to say."

I wasn't going to put words into his mouth for him, and so I shrugged. "You could say thank you. There's always that."

"Well, yeah!" There was a hint of sarcasm in Eren's tone, as he said that. "But thank you isn't enough! I mean, you're doing something so incredible for me, something that I'm going to appreciate for the rest of my life, so let me, like, give you a tip, or something. Or dinner? Can I at least buy you dinner?"

"I already ate." Which was true, I did already eat. I had heated up an instant meal during Eren's hardcore nap of steel.

"Well, I haven't," Eren continued to protest. "At least let me treat you to something. You could order off of the children's menu, for all I care. I just need to do this, okay?"

The way Eren had phrased that sounded a tad peculiar. 'I just need to do this.' He didn't need to do anything, not as far as I was concerned; however, he thought otherwise, apparently. "Why?"

"Why, what?"

This was going to take all night. Dragging out a sigh, I rested my hand against the base of my neck and elaborated. "Why do you feel that way? Why do you feel like this is something that you have to do? I made you a pretty damn good offer just now. Why can't you just accept it and move on?"

"Because I know that it's a pity offer. While I'm both flattered and grateful for not having to pay, quite frankly, I'm also kind of insulted."

Wow, that was definitely not the response I had been expecting. Then again, who was I fooling? I never knew what to expect with this kid; he was just one surprise after the other. One thing was for certain, though, and it was that Eren was a man who spoke his mind. His mind may have been obnoxious when it was put into words, but hey, I had to appreciate his honesty.

"Fine, then," I said. My response had been mixed with slight amusement. "If that's how it's going to be, I won't put up a fuss. You're obviously as adamant in your ways, as I am in mine, right?"

Eren nodded in agreement. And so, walking past him to the main wall where most of the light switches, as well as the keys for lock-up were kept, I flicked off each switch individually and watched as the space gradually grew darker. Soon, there was nothing left but the streetlights and the head bulbs of passing cars to illuminate the shop. Even in the absence of light, I could still clearly shape the outlines of Eren's confused complexion. Did he not understand what I was implying? This kid really required an explanation for everything, didn't he?

Turning on my heel, I leaned against the frame of the front door. For whatever reason, Eren still didn't seem to be catching my drift. He stood exactly where I had left him, seeming to be in need of further instruction. Fair enough. Grabbing the lock-up keys by their lanyard and twisting them around my wrist, I beckoned him with a small flick of my fingers, one that would hopefully entice him to comply for once in his life. "Now that that's settled, I'll accept your offer. Take me out to dinner."


After the shop had been locked up and Eren and I had gravitated ourselves onto the loose gravel of the parking lot, he asked me if I had any restaurants in mind. The fact that I had no appetite wasn't really helping the matter, so I simply directed the question back onto him. "Anywhere is fine. Finding a place that's still open is going to be the tough part, though."

Eren seemed concerned, after hearing that. "Still open? What, do restaurants close early around here, or something?"

"Uh, did you forget how late it is? By the time we actually get somewhere, it'll almost be 10PM, and that's typically when most restaurants close."

"Hmm..." Eren pinched his chin with his thumb and his index finger, before slipping both of his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. "Let's just get ice cream, then. There's gotta be a place around here that sells ice cream, right?"

When Eren said things like that, it made me feel as if he wasn't familiar with this part of town. Everyone and their grandma knew about the old-fashioned ice cream parlor down on the street corner. It was located just a couple blocks away from the tattoo shop, which made it rest on that fine line of being too far to walk to, and too close to drive to.

"Yeah, there is," I said, pointing in said direction of the parlor. "It's not too far from here, but if we were to walk, it would probably take us about twenty minutes or so. Are you up for that, or do you want me to drive?"

Shaking his head, Eren began to slowly walk toward where my finger had led him. Stopping on the junction where the gravel had smoothed into solid tar, he tossed me a quick glance from over his shoulder and said, "It's a nice night. It's not raining, and it's not too chilly. I say we walk."

Hey, if that's what he wanted, that was fine by me; I wouldn't have suggested otherwise. Without a word, I kicked up some gravel as I quickened my step and met up with Eren on the junction. After that, we began to walk.

Being someone who always managed to put up a fuss when it came to most things that had to do with Eren, I had to say, walking wordlessly by his side as we watched the nighttime cars pass us by was actually kind of nice. It felt refreshing, not being forced to talk, and on the same notion, I wasn't feeling the heavy weight of an uncomfortable silence. I really hadn't thought that he and I had reached that level in our relationship yet, or that we even had a relationship at all. Well, whatever. It was nice, either way.

Because Eren and I had strolled along at our own, leisurely pace, it ended up talking us twenty-five minutes to get to the parlor instead of twenty. Not that big of a difference, but a difference big enough for me to realize that - oh, crap, the parlor closed at 10, and it was already 9:58PM.

"We have to hurry up." I must have spoken up too suddenly, because Eren reacted outrageously with a start. Okay, maybe not outrageously. All he had done was jump, and it was kind of...no. I refused to let myself think like that.

"What?" he asked. He was slightly at a loss of breath. "Why?"

"Because the parlor closes in two minutes and we're still a block away."

Eren cussed and kicked his footing into high gear. Even though I had been the unspoken leader for most of our walk, he had quickly stripped me of my title. If there was one thing I could say about his reaction, it would be that Eren must have been incredibly passionate about a lousy scoop of ice cream.

Catching up with him had been the easy part; having to burst through the front doors of the parlor and nearly spooking the living daylights out of one of the part-time workers? Not so much. With that being said, the interior was just like I remembered. Everything about it, from the wacky walls and the quirky seating arrangements, right down to the speckled flooring made out of tacky tiles, everything practically screamed the late 50s. Because of its expressive individuality that made it different from all of the other ice cream shops in the area, it was no wonder why this place had become so popular, and it still baffled me how Eren had known absolutely nothing about it.

After regaining some of her composure, the docile teenager scampered around to get herself positioned behind the counter, before welcoming us to the shop. "What can I get for you?"

That was a good question. I couldn't remember the last time I had actually consumed ice cream. It had to have been well over a year ago. Just because I was having trouble deciding on what I wanted, that didn't mean that Eren was bound by the same conflict. In fact, he seemed to have his order ready right away.

"I'll have two scoops of mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone. Oh, and rainbow sprinkles, too, please."

Mint chocolate chip and rainbow sprinkles? That sounded like a nasty combination to me. But even if I was disgusted by it, I wasn't the one who would be eating it, which left me with absolutely no say in Eren's odd ice cream choices. I'd be lying if I said that it didn't get me thinking, though. What his taste was like in other things. Did he like spicy foods? Or maybe he was more into sweets?

What was I doing? I didn't have time to think about this. It was my turn to order.

As Eren stepped aside, giving me a chance to get a better look at the variety of different flavor options, I noticed the young worker's demeanor beginning to shift. Now that I was her customer, she seemed to become more uptight than before. Half of my brain was telling me that it must have been the tattoos that were putting her off, but the other half was convinced that it had to have been my overall intimidation. I'd never be certain which half was actually correct, though. It could have been both halves, and it could have been neither; that didn't stop me from finally choosing to get two scoops of black cherry ice cream - topped with even more black cherries - in a cup, as opposed to a cone.

With both of our orders rung up and accounted for, it was time to head back outside. It would have been nice to sit around and enjoy the retro atmosphere for a bit longer, but it was already five minutes past closing. As a shop owner myself, I knew the annoyances of having to deal with customers after hours, and so we slipped out through the front doors without making anymore trouble for the workers. Hey, even if we couldn't eat our ice cream inside, at least there were a few benches, along with a low-set brick wall for us to sit on. Like Eren had mentioned earlier, it was a nice night, so why not enjoy it to its fullest?

Following Eren's lead, we sat down on the wall and began eating our ice cream. While the silence between us may have been comfortable while we were walking, now that the sounds of slurping and sucking were added into the mix, it started to feel a bit strange.

"There are no stars out tonight," Eren noticed. I looked over at him. "Then again, the stars never seem to come out around here."

"We live in the suburbs, what do you expect?" I dug my spoon into my cup and scooped out a large chunk of cherry. Before popping it into my mouth, I added, "Saying things like that makes you sound like you're not from around here."

"Because I'm not." And there it was, the answer to my lingering question. "I just moved here at the start of the spring semester. I've only been living in this town for about three months or so."

That explained so many things, like why Eren hadn't known about the ice cream parlor, or how he had to research local tattoo shops in his area to find mine. I was about to ask him where he was originally from, but was quickly sidetracked when he took another lick from his cone.

Watching him slide his way up and down the sides of his icy treat, my main focus was on his tongue. I'm not sure how I hadn't noticed it before, but Eren's tongue was pierced. I was already well aware of the fact that he had some piercings on his ears, so "shock" probably wasn't the best word to describe how I felt towards this new discovery. Taken aback, maybe? Intrigued?

Eren stopped in mid-lick, when he realized that I had been watching him. With his tongue still pressed to his cone, he sounded like a kid who had licked a metal pole on a cold day, as he tried to talk. "Uh, is something wrong?"

"No, it's nothing. I was just noticing that your tongue is pierced."

For the love of God, Eren smirked at that. Licking the rest of the way up his cone, he swallowed the ice cream that had pooled on his palate and stuck his tongue back out. That was gross. Some of his sprinkles had gotten stuck beneath his piercing, whereas the rest of his tongue was coated in a thin layer of green food dye. Yes, definitely an attractive sight to see.

Even after slipping his tongue back into his mouth, Eren couldn't seem to stop smirking. Ugh, what an arrogant little brat. "Do you like piercings, Levi?"

"I wouldn't say that I like them, but I do notice them." I was into a different kind of needle; a tattoo needle. Piercing my ears or any other part of my body was a thought that had honestly never crossed my mind.

Shrugging, Eren suggested, "Maybe you should think about getting some. Personally, I think you would look good with snake bites."

Things got a kind of quiet after that. Unfazed by the lack of conversation, Eren continued to lick and lap at his sprinkled ice cream cone. Was I the only one who thought that eating and silence was a horribly uncomfortable combination?

I was relieved when Eren quickly conjured up a new topic for us to converse about, but what I wasn't so grateful for was that it ended up being the start of a discussion that I wasn't so sure I wanted to get into. "You know," he began, as he collected a few sprinkles onto his tongue, "I talked a lot about myself tonight, but I still know very little about you."

Fitting the spoon back into my mouth and sucking on the plastic, I asked, "Yeah? What's your point?"

"Well, I obviously want to get to know you better, and since I sort of slept through my chance to ask you questions and stuff, why not now?"

Like I said, this wasn't really a discussion I was up for, but it was better than having to listen to the sounds of Eren's tongue slurping and slapping against his ice cream cone in silence. "I mean, if that's what you want, then I don't have a problem with it." I had a slight problem with it. "What do you want to know?"

Suddenly seeming very interested, Eren scooted himself across the wall so that he was seated closer to me. Legs crossed and ready to listen, he said, "Tell me a little bit about why you wanted to become a tattoo artist. Why not just a regular artist? You know, with canvases and portraits and stuff?"

Oh, if only Eren knew about the canvases I had back at my apartment. If only he knew...

Sighing, I shoved my spoon back into my cup and set it down on the wall. Things were about to get rather personal; I had to prepare myself. I began by saying, "I had my heart set on becoming a quote, unquote 'regular artist' from a very young age. I would stick my hands into anything that I could find and I would just...create. People used to say that I was so inspirational, and that my imagination would get me far in life. But sure enough, this funny thing called 'getting older' started to happen, and I guess that's when reality finally hit...and it hit pretty damn hard.

In high school, I was made fun of for drawing in my text books and for taking as many art courses as I possibly could. Eventually, it got to the point where I dropped everything. I didn't want to amount to nothing but the starving artist everyone claimed I would be. It had been so drilled into my brain that art was a one-way ticket to homelessness that soon enough, I'd completely forgotten how much of a passion I had for it. Luckily, Hanji was there to remind me."

"Did you and Hanji meet in high school?" Eren wondered.

"College," I corrected him. "She was an art major, and I was undecided. Because of her, I was reminded of who I truly was. I was an artist at heart, and no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, no suit-and-tie career was ever going to change that."

I continued to tell Eren some of the stockpile stories I had, stories from back when I was in college. There was one story in particular that I knew he would get a kick out of. "When we were being taught how to draw the anatomy, one of our assignments was the paint a particular part of someone else's body and explain why you chose that part. It goes without saying that Hanji and I ended up being partners. For my body part, she chose to paint my arm, the significance of it being that I had just recently gotten my first tattoo on my arm. But for her body part, she ended up sprawling herself across dorm room bed, and demanded that I not only chose one of her body parts, but all of them. Essentially, she wanted me to paint her like 'one of my French girls'."

I was right. After hearing that ridiculous quote, Eren snorted. Because of that, he ended up getting a bit of ice cream on the tip of his nose. I really didn't want to admit, in fact, I tried to force myself against it, but it was kind of adorable how Eren made a huge fuss about his dirty nose, making sure that he had wiped it all off. Just the way that he nudged his face into back of his sleeve, he really reminded me of...a kitten. Crap.

When he had finally settled, Eren asked, "Did you do it?"

"Do what? Paint Hanji naked?" He nodded. "Yeah, I did. It took around five or six hours, but I ended up getting the highest grade in the class for one of the most controversial masterpieces of the semester."

As Eren continued to laugh, I took the opportunity to finish my melting ice cream; it would have been a waste to let Eren's treat go to waste. Popping the last of the cherries into my mouth, I chewed it thoroughly and waited to see if the kid had any other questions. For the time being, however, he seemed to be very focused on finishing up the rest of his ice cream as well, which was threatening to melt down his arm if he wasn't careful enough.

While waiting, I let the ghost of the nightly breeze tickle my nose and play with the hairs of my fringe. I felt more relaxed than I ever thought I would have, sitting next to that brat. But you know, after the deeply personal evening we'd spent together, being in the wake of his presence was almost enjoyable...almost.

Shortly after I had set my cup aside, Eren began biting into his cone, and it wasn't much longer after that initial crunch that he was done, too. Truth be told, it would have been nice to sit around for a little while longer, but with twenty-five minutes of walking ahead of us, it was better if we left.

The striking difference between our walk to and back from the parlor was that, this time around, we weren't silent. Eren and I resumed our talk about my college days, and after speaking so much nonsense about my passions and my drives, it was no wonder when he asked, "Levi, what's your biggest dream? Like, what's something that you really want to achieve?"

The sense of deja vu was uncanny, seeing as Hanji had asked me the very same thing right before we had graduated. Even though we both grew older and our interests may have been slightly different from what they were back then, my dream was something that would always remain a constant. It was never going to change.

Stepping onto the thick gravel of the unpaved parking lot, I turned to Eren and looked directly at him. We'd been speaking through sideways glances for most of the night, that it almost felt odd to hold such focused eye contact with him. And you know what everyone says, right? It's dangerous to look directly at the sun.

"My dream has always been to paint the town," I started quietly, however, my tone gradually grew louder as my speech progressed. "Not a portrait of the town, but the town itself. I want to drown this suburb in color and make thr city feel psychedelic. I don't even really know why I want to do it, but it's always been a fantasy of mine, so becoming a tattoo artist was the next best thing for me - I figured that if I can't paint the town itself, I can paint all of its people."

For what felt like an eternity, Eren simply stared at me in awe. Had my dream baffled him? Did it freak him out? No, that couldn't be it. He wouldn't have been smiling if he had felt uncomfortable or confused. Stepping closer, he murmured, "I think that's an awesome dream to have," before slipping his hands into his back pockets. I doubted that I was mistaken, but within those very short moments, there had been a definite shift in the atmosphere between us. Somehow, things had gone from being open and relaxed to feeling slightly like a predator and his prey.

Eren had gone from standing fifteen feet away to standing fifteen inches away, and just as I was about to step back and ask him why he'd felt the need to be so close to me, he questioned, "Levi, do you want to know what my dream is?"

Tonight had been a night of learning new things. I'd learned things about Eren that he surely wouldn't have shared with a stranger on the streets, and he learned things about me that I typically liked to keep to myself, so why not learn what his dream was, as well? As much as it pained me to admit - so many painful admissions - we were already inevitably becoming closer...closer...closer...too close.

Before I could even blink, there was the soothing sensation of something metallic and wet sliding across my lips, a sensation that was met with the feeling of something much softer, something much more skilled. Lips. These were lips that were playing with mine, and just as I'd become accustomed to their presence, the fragile feeling had stopped and Eren had pulled away.

I'd never be certain why he had felt inclined to kiss me that night. Although our trip to the ice cream parlor had been reasonably questionable, it hadn't been a date. Unless, did Eren see it that way? I would have asked, but he was already stalking backwards toward his car.

Wearing the proudest little smirk on his face, he shot me a wave and left me with a few words of parting. If I'd been so caught up in the sentiment of our evening that I'd forgotten how much of a little brat he truly was, his following statement served as a grim reminder of that.

"If you want to know what my dream is, you're going to have to figure it out for yourself. Oh, and that kiss just now? That was a hint."


Hi there! Chappy here! :D

Alright, I'm much happier with the length of this chapter! Again, I really apologize for last week's shorter chapter, but hopefully the contents of this update made up for that! And speaking of its contents, I wonder what Eren's dream is, hmm? (;

On another note, the pacing of this chapter was quite slow paced, but I really enjoyed writing for it, and I hope you all enjoyed it, as well!

And of course, thank you for taking the time to read! I always appreciate it!

- Chappy