Mikasa

After two years of communicating via eye rolls, crossed arms, and flippant whatever's, it's certainly been an adjustment moving all everything to iMessage.

As expected of a Pulitzer finalist, Levi texts with unnervingly spotless grammar, every punctuation mark in its place. I find myself screening each message I shoot him, double-checking for spelling errors, deleting any and all occurrences of internet slang. He never asks how I'm doing—not explicitly, at least. Once a day, he'll send me a link to a news article or a caption-less photo with the unspoken message: What do you think about this? And tell me about your day. And several times a week, he'll call me when he's doing dishes or stretching after a neighborhood run.

I tell him about my classes. As it turns out, I'm taking a English seminar with the same eccentric professor he had years back, so I provide Levi a constant stream of zany quotes and outbursts from class. I send photos of creative signs from the latest protest on campus. I show him what I'm eating for meals, as well as what I'm drinking at parties. Sometimes he responds with a comment. Other times, he reacts with an icon—a "haha" if he's sufficiently entertained by the quote of day from our professor, a "thumb's down" if the dorm room cocktail I've made looks downright repulsive, an "exclamation point" if he acknowledges a meaningful response I've made to the Atlantic op-ed he sent me.

He only uses FaceTime when he can't figure out how an appliance works. When our house lost power during a lightning storm, he'd point his iPhone at the control panel in our basement, and I'd strain to see the buttons through the pixely quality of his camera. We'd yell back and forth, me expressing frustration over his shaky hand, him snapping back at how bad I am at explaining things. And ever since he's become a pescatarian, he's been experimenting with the blender. However, I've had to inform him, multiple times, that that ominous growling sound he's hearing is a clear indication that coffee beans and potatoes don't fare well in these machines.

"Your uncle misses you," my roommate Pieck commented one evening, after I hung up from a phone call. Levi had spent a good portion of the conversation explaining a neighborhood love triangle that's been forming between Carla, Hannes, and Eren's old soccer coach, Keith Shadis.

"You think so?" I asked, leaning back in my desk chair.

Pieck only uses her desk as a storage space for her succulent plants and books. She avoids the library as if it's the plague and insists on doing her math problem sets in the comfort of her own bed. She was slumped against her pillows, a linear algebra textbook propped up in her lap, but she rolled onto her tummy, propping her chin up with her hands, to answer my question. "He doesn't strike me as someone who'd call or text first," she said, "unless he really misses the person's company, ya know?"

When it comes to uncanny intuition, Pieck Finger could give Levi a run for his money. One night, when I stumbled home drunk, I had asked her if she could predict the future. She shrugged and said that that might be her next project after she loses interest in the stock market.

"Like, think about it," she added. "Coffee beans and potatoes in a blender? I'm pretty sure he's not that much of a dolt. And the neighborhood drama? Please, he wants an excuse to call you."

I've kept up a steady text message rally for the first month of school, but recently, the semester has picked up speed. The thing with being a college student is that there's really no such thing as a weekend. From Monday through Friday, my days are packed with class, studying, office hours, newsroom shifts with the campus paper, and meetings with the literary magazine. Friday afternoons technically mark the end of the weekday whirl, but I only have a couple of hours to decompress before it's time to throw on a crop top and bar hop with Pieck. I'm in a library for most of my Saturdays. When the evening comes around, I might take the subway down to Greenwich Village to see Eren if he's not away for a soccer match. Otherwise, it's another night bouncing from pre-game to pre-game with Pieck. And on Sundays, I'm either recovering from drinking two nights in a row or taking advantage of the fact that Eren's roommate is out for most of the day.

Levi seems to get it when I have to hang up after only a couple minutes of talking or when my responses to his text messages are lackluster. "Don't get hooked on Adderall," he tells me. "And for what it's worth as a person who's dealt with cardiac issues, I highly advise against 5-Hour Energy."

Midterm season has been a delirious blur. My deadlines and exams have not been harmonizing well with Eren's soccer schedule, so we haven't seen each other in almost three weeks. And it's been about a month since Levi and I have had a conversation lasting longer than ten minutes.

But if there's an upside to all of this, midterm week has forged a symbiotic codependency between the night-owl in Pieck and the early-bird in me. Pieck got me hooked on her midnight instant ramen habit, and I've been making her an extra cup of Keurig coffee in the AM. She shakes me awake when I nod off in the evenings; I serve as her alarm clock in the mornings. We take frequent study breaks, going for angry walks around campus, complaining about our assignments, our TA's, and our professors. Or if we're not in the mood for exercise, we order ungodly amounts of food on Grubhub.

At last, on a Friday, I turn in my last midterm exam and head straight for the subway. After about forty-five minutes, I'm knocking on a door, and within seconds, Eren's pulling me into a hug.

"Hey, you," he says, kissing me. "You're free, finally."

"Long time no see," I murmur against his lips. Still making out, we scuttle past his common room, into his bedroom, and he locks the door before pressing my body up against the adjacent wall.

"How did exams go?" His lips roam my neck, and his hands squeeze my ass.

I scrunch his long hair with my fingers, and several stray strands fall out of his messy bun. "Well, they're over," I gasp, when his teeth graze against my collarbone.

Wrapping my legs around his back, I laugh when he lifts me up, carries me to his bed, and throws us both on his mattress. When we did this as juniors in high school, I had no trouble pinning him on his back, but since then, he's sprouted into a six-foot midfielder with broader shoulders. I grind my hips against his, and I can tell that he's already hard. His hand reaches up the front of my shirt, sliding under my bralette, and I let out a soft sigh when his thumb rubs circles over my nipple.

"How are you feeling?" he asks me, and his second hand joins his first to massage my other breast.

"It's been a long week," I reply, sitting up to take my T-shirt off. Soon after, I'm back on my back, and he's pushed my bralette up, kissing my chest, sucking at my nipples while running a hand up and down my flank.

"Honestly," he says, lifting his neck to kiss me on the lips. His irises grow darker when he's turned on, and he allows himself a sheepish laugh before continuing, "I don't know how I wouldn't have made it these past couple of weeks without those pictures you sent me." I lift my arms, and he pulls the lacy, red bralette up and over my head. "This thing looked so hot on you," he says, tossing the piece of lingerie to the ground.

"Then why did you want it off?" I ask, tracing the contours of his back with my fingertips.

In moments, his shirt comes off, and he starts unbuttoning his pants, while I slip out of my jeans and panties. "You look even better without anything on," he says, grinning.

"Pieck almost walked in on me when I was taking those photos," I grumble. "That's just a one-time thing, okay?"

"But what if you disappear on me for finals?" Eren teases. His fingers stroke at my clit, and I arch my back, letting out a moan.

"You know," I manage to say as he builds up pressure along that spot. "It's sad... that—"

My breath hitches when his tongue replaces his hand, and he slides a finger into me. Over the years, he's figured out how to do this expertly, having discovered the optimal levels of speed, pressure, and coordination that have me writhing beneath him, bunching up the bed sheets, gasping his name. But knowledge is power, and he's learned that nothing makes me more frazzled than when he stops, just seconds before I'm about to climax. He always asks, impishly, me why I prefer rougher sex, and I always argue back that my preference for rougher sex is a side-effect of his taunting.

"It's sad that what?" Eren says, giving me a chance to gather my thoughts when he reaches towards his nightstand for a condom.

"It's sad that three weeks without sex make us this desperate," I remark, crossing my arms over my bare chest. "I still can't believe there are pictures of me ass-naked on your phone. I literally had to prop my phone up with a beer can to get the right angles. I'll never look at this brand of Pilsner the same way, ever again."

"I love you," he replies, kissing me before entering me.

I've missed sex—feeling every inch of his body against mine, maximizing the amount of contact between us, becoming keenly aware of his every breath, movement, and desire. And in a way, sex is a reminder. While our relationship in high school was marked by idle afternoons in my backyard and lazy sunsets by Lake Michigan, our relationship in college—in the bustling New York City—is defined by erratic schedules and the constant need to raincheck, to reshape plans. We took for granted those blissful days of high school, and these moments in bed are a reminder to treasure every last moment together.

But then something rumbles in the bed sheets.

"Shit," I mutter, rummaging through the blankets for my cell phone. "What time is it?"

"Like, 5PM?" Eren offers, glancing at the clock on his dresser. "Why?"

"I was supposed to call Levi," I mumble. "But I'm kinda… busy at the moment. Dammit, I promised him—"

"Go ahead, take it," Eren says, rolling off of me.

"No, I can reschedule," I argue, but to my absolute horror, he wrenches the phone out of my grasp and answers the call.

"Hello?" Levi's flat drone echoes through the space between us. "You there?"

"H-hi! How are you?!" I squeak, growing red. I pretend to kick at Eren, but he catches my leg and leans forward to kiss my inner thigh.

"Jesus, why do you sound like that? I feel like I'm talking to a squirrel that did one too many lines of cocaine. Do you want to do the video call thing—"

"Connection isn't so great right now!" I interrupt, while Eren muffles his laughter in a pillow. "Can we FaceTime another day?"

"Whatever. It's seriously no big deal if you look like you went for a swim in the sewer. No one looks glamorous after midterms," he says. "Anyways, it's almost been a month since we've properly talked. Are you homesick yet?"

"A little," I answer. "Midterms kinda kicked my butt."

"It's by design. Think of it as divine retribution for all the underage drinking you've done."

"Shouldn't you get an equal share of this 'divine retribution,' since you've encouraged me to drink with you dozens of times by now?"

"In case you forgot, I got hit by a car."

"Ah, right—"

"Bad joke, I know," he says lightly. "Anyways, let me share with you an anecdote from the past week. Remember our dearest friend, Floch Forster? So this motherfucker had the gall to go on Good Morning America and say that his take on Erwin's life was more 'objective' and 'comprehensive' than mine. Here, let me pull up the fucking transcript, let's see, oh, here it is. So he added by saying that 'Levi Ackerman has the sportsmanship of a three-year-old throwing a tantrum at a Little League game.' Can we dissect that statement for a sec? For starters, as someone who's made the Little League rounds as a kid, I can assure you that three-year-olds are not eligible to play—"

As Levi goes on and on about his most recent spat with Floch, Eren presses his lips against my neck. His hand wanders down past my navel, and he's slowly stroking my clit again, sending shivers up my spine.

"What are you doing?!" I whisper, trying to wriggle away from him.

"Relax," he whispers, pressing his lips to mine. One of the things that surprised me the most about being physically intimate with Eren was his ability to kiss so tenderly. I've always imagined him to be passionate—but in a sloppy kind of way. However, little did I know, he had this gentle side to him that never fails to render me spellbound. Whenever we'd make up after a fight, I'd even feel my frustration dissipate whenever he kissed me.

"So being the civil adult that I am," Levi continues, "I decide to ring Floch up. He picks up after the first ring, yet tries to be all cool and casual, offers up a bullshit-ridden explanation for the theatrics he pulled on national television—" As he continues on his rampage, I occasionally break free from Eren's lips to offer an "uh-huh" or an "oh, shit," making sure to re-mute my microphone afterwards.

At some point, Eren stops kissing me, and he positions himself between my legs once me. His mouth teases my clit yet again, pulling groans out of me, one after the other. "You're so wet," he whispers, popping his head up to smirk at me.

"So when he finally concludes his overly-verbose monologue, I don't say a single word for about fifteen seconds. He's right on the verge of hanging up on me when I finally go, 'Okay, look'—"

"This is so fucked up!" I hiss at Eren.

"Tell me about it," Levi remarks on the other line, and Eren snickers at me when I hit the mute button in a fluster. "You know what's fucked up? The way he's accusing me of plagiarism, even though I beat him to the punch. Give me a fucking break. Anyways—"

"Do you want me to stop?" Eren asks, pulling back for a moment.

Levi keeps complaining, but none of his words register in my head.

I sit up, wrapping my arms around Eren's neck, and I kiss him. "Do you wanna pick up where we left off?" I whisper into his ear.

"Hell yeah, I do," he says softly.

"Then make sure you're quiet."

"And also, make sure you hang up beforehand, you fucking animals." Levi's voice rings out, cold and clear over the speaker. "And while you're at it, learn how to use the fucking mute function. You know what, screw it. I'll hang up for you. I'm free all day tomorrow if you wanna do a Take II. Send Eren my regards."

Eren and I spend the next ten minutes agonizing over what Levi heard. Eren thinks he only caught the last bit, but a part of me wonders if I had screwed up with the mute button for the entirety of the call, meaning that everything was on the record. Right as I start wondering if it's worth going home for Thanksgiving, my phone buzzes once. A text notification. My hands trembling, I check it: a message from Levi.

He's punished me with a long-form political analysis piece published in Politico.

Slumping against Eren in relief, I weakly elbow him in the gut. "That was so stupid," I mumble into his pillow.

"Sorry," he manages, equally shell-shocked.

"So… should we finish what we started?"

A/N: Could it be…? The beginning of the one-shot's? Guys, I wanna share some hella exciting news! So AlysiusArt (on Twitter and Tumblr) made a cover art for WUARD, which I've uploaded, and I'm screaming because she knocked this thing OUT OF THE PARK. Also, check out her art! She's got some absolutely masterpieces on her accounts! (Ughhhhh I just tried to upload the cover to FF, but a large chunk of the image got cropped out! Check out my pinned tweet spoiler_arlert on Twitter to see it in all its glory!)