Chapter 20
My Dilemma
Since stepping out of Levi's office on Wednesday, Eren's life had fallen into a pit of misery. He could not stop thinking about Levi nor the way he had totally been dismissed by the singer. He had gone through bouts of being so devastated he cried at the smallest reminder, to being so enraged he wanted to out L to the world. But no matter how much suffering he felt at any given moment, he still could not bring himself to hurt the singer that way. For some reason or another, Levi had had faith in him enough to tell him his real name and to confess finally that he was L. Therefore, Eren didn't want to lose the only thing that still held them together—Levi's trust.
Eren understood that this whole mess was complicated. But no matter how he tried to rationalize with his head that the best thing would be to just let Levi go, his heart would cry out at him even louder, telling him he needed to grasp the singer with all his might now more than ever.
Eren had been flip-flopping back and forth on this so much he didn't even go to any of his classes Thursday, which was definitely not a good thing.
He knew that if he had anything less than a perfect GPA, his parents would pull him out of this college and send him to the one they wanted him to go to. But, at the same time, his mind also wondered if that would be such a bad thing? Maybe it would give him the fresh start he needed to move on and get over the singer. Though, as he dwelled on this thought, he knew that going to a different university in a different state would still not really solve his dilemma.
He had always been states away from the singer, but that never once stopped him from thinking about L. Being honest with himself, now that he knew the singer's real identity, he knew could not stand to be that far away from the noirette ever again; especially not after he had met L, had been held in his arms, and had unveiled who the man really was. Eren knew there was no way he could ever forget about the singer. Here L was so close, but Levi was so far away.
Yet, although Eren knew he could not stand to be hundreds of miles away from the singer, he thought maybe putting a little space between them might not be such a bad idea. At the present moment, he knew his heart would break every time he saw the man. Shit it had been bad enough that he had to take down the plethora of No Name posters that papered his walls just to stop him from breaking down in tears every time looked at them. His once adorned bedroom's walls were now eerily bare, depicting there was no life inhabiting the room anymore, just like there was no life left in him. The only one he was not able to take down was the very first band poster he had bought at his first No Name concert.
It was a limited tour only print designed with the band members dressed in black and white and put on a red background. As Eren examined the poster, he felt a cold chill run down his back as he looked closer at what the band was wearing. They wore black knee high boots over white pants with a black belt, tucked in white button down dress shirts under cropped top black leather jackets, and the black bandages they always wore to cover their faces extended down from their heads and were wrapped in criss-cross patterns all the way down their bodies. With trembling fingers, he dropped his hands that were ready to rip the final poster from the wall and then mindlessly walked out on his balcony for some air.
After that he just slowly sank deeper and deeper into his desolation.
It didn't help that since their fight Eren's dreams—when he did sleep—had gotten worse than ever. For in them, he had now become the monster attacking: eating people and killing them alongside the monsters he should have been slaying. His slumber visualizations were so disturbingly vibrantly real he didn't know which was worse—staying awake or falling asleep. But the thing that stood out the most to Eren was that the man he had come to recognize as "Heichou" was nowhere to be found and that filled him with wrathful dread, which was equally painful, as he crushed the humans surrounding him.
When Eren reached his lowest point, while recoiling in the back bottom of his closet, the solution came to him; and he felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. The one thing that Levi had kept telling Eren was that he could never put his hands on one of his students. Well, if being Levi's student was the problem, that was easy enough to fix. All Eren had to do was drop the class and the problem would be solved. Except, dropping was not as easy as it sounded. Being that Eren was a first semester freshman, he had to speak with his advisor and get the man to approve the withdrawal. Therefore, this was what Eren had started doing Friday morning instead of going to Levi's class.
Filled with determination, Eren casually walked into his advisor's open office door and noted the room looked like a closet compared to the size of Levi's office, but he only let that thought distract him for a second. "Mr. Hannes," Eren called out.
A man with short dirty blond hair and a thin matching colored mustache lifted his golden hazel eyes from the reports he was reading and stared inquisitively at Eren. "Yes, can I help you, young man?"
The foreignness in the man's tone slapped Eren with the realization that he had just waltzed up to his advisor, whom he had never met before, and boldly called out to him like the man knew who he was. "Um…Hi, I'm Eren Yeager, and I'm here to get your approval to drop a class."
"I take it that you must be a freshman then," the blond stated, sounding thoroughly not impressed.
"Yes, sir."
Humming in response, Mr. Hannes turned to his computer, grabbed the mouse, and started clicking on the small device. "What is your student number?"
"8, 4, 2, 3, 6, 5, 7," Eren called out, only getting anxious after he was finished.
"Here we go. Eren Yeager, first semester Pre-med freshman, and it shows you are taking 19 hours. Is that correct?" the advisor recited almost like a script that he had long become bored with.
"Yes, sir."
The advisor turned his eyes back to Eren with a wink of interest. "So what can I do for you so early in the morning?"
"I need to drop my Psych 101 class."
"I see. And the reason why would be?"
'Because unknowingly, I got fucked hard by my professor, who also just happens to be L of No Name, and I want him to do it again.'
But instead of blurting out what was the real reason, "Well, as you see, I'm taking 19 hours with 8 classes in total because of the required lab extensions. The workload is killing me. On top of that, I moved here all the way from California to come to this college, and if I don't Ace all my classes my parents are going to pull me out of here and drag me to whatever school they decide is best for me. So to sum it up. The adjustment to a new place, coupled by the amount of classes and the pressure from my parents, it's starting to make it me sick from stress."
Eren told the much older man the more practical one he had come up with beforehand; however, even though the words were a lie, the emotional frustration behind them was not. It was clear as day that the brunet was definitely dealing with a great deal of anxiety.
"Yes, that is a bit to be handing all for the first time," the man said, finally showing some human empathy. "Well, don't beat yourself up, Eren. It's common for a few starting out freshmen needing to drop a class. That being said, I am going to have to advise you that it would be best for you to make up the class during the summer semester so you didn't fall behind and be off schedule for graduation," Hannes said before he printed out the paperwork for the withdrawal.
"Yes, sir. I'll make sure to make up the class during the summer."
After Eren agreed, his advisor signed the slip and then imparted, "You have to bring this back to me after you get your professor's signature. It is up to him if he thinks you can pass the class or not based on your current grade. If Dr. Ackerman thinks you can, you are going to have to pick a different class to drop or wait a bit longer before you drop. We make this mandatory for all freshmen to keep them from dropping too many classes and end up with too many W's on their transcript—or worse, dropping out—And as a Pre-med student, you can't afford to have that, it would look twice as bad on your transcript when you applied for med school." Once the man's speech was over, he handed the withdrawal paper to Eren.
Eren took the paper and stared at it for a few seconds mulling the blonde's words over in his head. 'After everything that happened, "Dr. Ackerman" is going to be more than happy to have me out of his class.' Although this would solve the problem of him being Levi's student, he would still have to find a way to get closer to the singer outside of the university. But at least this was the first step.
Thanking his advisor, Eren walked out of the room and made his way to the Starbucks on campus. He had Dr. Ackerman's class schedule and office hours memorized; therefore, he knew that the noirette was currently teaching one of his classes. Figuring the coffee shop was a good place to kill some time, he waited God knows how long in the lengthy line before he ordered a grande caramel coffee with three espresso shots added.
He needed to be wide awake and alert to face Levi.
Levi sat at his office computer, but the only movement on the screen was the blinking document cursor. He had somehow made it through his first two classes, operating on autopilot all morning, while he mechanically thought both of them. After getting dressed, Levi had been able to stuff all his emotions back into the black box which lay in the masked recesses of his mind, where they had remained thus for with the exception of the first few minutes of his 0800hr class.
When Levi had walked into his first class five minutes late, he noticed a certain sparkling eyed brunet missing from his usual front row seat; and unexpectedly, the hole carved by the dream burned. Not sparing any time to analyze it, he swiftly repeated in his head, 'I am stronger than my dreams. I am stronger than my dreams. I am stronger than my dreams,' as he walked to the lector's desk in the middle of the room. The talking room seemed to magically become silent with only the sounds of rustling papers and the clanking of plastic on wood while he pulled out his lector notes and multiple colors of dry erase markers. He then passed out the roll sheet and began class as per usual: getting straight to the topic without any pleasantries.
Teaching the two classes had given Levi something to at least half-ass focus his mind on. But now in the quietness of his pristine office, the first sliver of emotion surfaced; and he found himself sitting in his office chair once again alone with the monster in his head roaring to be let out of its cage. He needed a distraction. He could clean except there was nothing that needed cleaning. However, he didn't think even that could get all his emotions to calm down and disappear.
So instead, he opened his side desk drawer and pulled out a set of noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones. If there was any one thing that could always calm him down, it was his music. He picked up his phone off the desk, unlocked it, and opened the phone's music player. He clicked on the setlist used for their last tour before he leaned his head back onto his brown leather cushioned desk chair and closed his eyes. He had on multiple occasions settled his mind by critiquing the subtle flaws from the band's less experienced days, ones he repeatedly refused to fix because he knew the fans—people—did not like change. (Besides if the songs were that bad, then the band would not have gotten fans in the first place.)
Turning the volume up loud enough to drown out everything around him, he got lost in the sound as he listened to the original recordings.
Just like their concerts, the playlist started with their signature song, Masked Bitch. Levi had written the song, sung the song, and listened to the song a thousand times over; however, he had never felt more connected to the music than in this moment. The song eerily both mirrored and contrasted with his current turbulent emotional dilemma better than when he first wrote the lyrics—it was almost as if he had written this song for this exact moment. Startlingly, he was on both sides of the song, being the one speaking and the one being spoken to. For the singer depicted a person wanting only a physical relationship with no emotional attachments while playacting intimacy with a lover, yet at the same time wanting their partner to need them with an obsessive excitement they refuse to return all while the other dreams of love and suffers from the want they cannot have. Opening his eyes, Levi lifted up his phone and set the song to repeat before laying it on his desk and closing his eyes once again. Anchoring his emotions to the music like a life raft, he listened to the words and didn't notice that he had started to hum along to the music.
Eren stood outside Levi's door trying to get his courage up. While sitting in the coffee shop, he had rehearsed what he was going to say to the man in his head at least a dozen times. But all that determination seemed to vaporize the moment he got to Levi's door. 'You can do this, Eren. Just walk up to him, hand him the paper, and tell him that you want to drop his class. He'll sign the paper then you'll take it and walk out. And this will all be over with… for now.' He still had no clue how he was going to accomplish getting Levi to agree to meet up outside of campus, but that was something he could work out once he had gotten his head leveled again. And dropping this class was the first step.
With his mind now focused on his end goal, he purposely swung the door open with a swish. But he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Levi. The noirette was sitting with headphones on and his eyes closed reclining back in the posh desk chair. But what had stopped Eren's feet from moving was that the secret rock star was singing "Masked Bitch" in a low whisper that he did not notice from outside the door. He stood there not knowing what to do. Hearing those words sung from Levi's once thoroughly kissed lips now suddenly had a new meaning—they actually had a real meaning behind them to Eren. And they once again reminded him that L had wanted nothing more than sex from him. But as the lyrics shifted their meaning to a desire to be wanted, Eren heard the timber of genuine longing in L's voice unlike anything he had ever witnessed before. It was so emotionally pure and vulnerable that Eren wanted nothing more than to scoop the distressed singer into his arms and never let go. This wish snapped him out of his stupor and reminded him of his purpose for standing in Dr. Ackerman's office.
Finding the strength to move forward, he closed the door behind him with his fingers pushing down on the lock before he walked up to Levi's desk. The man had yet to acknowledge his presence, and given their last encounter, Eren wondered if he was once again encroaching on the singer's privacy. But right now was the "professor's" open office hours; so if the "singer" wanted his usual privacy, he should have locked the door.
No longer being conflicted, Eren politely knocked halfway up the wood in between them hard enough for the vibrations of the force to be felt by the inattentive man, or so he taught. The vibration didn't seem to be enough to pull the singer from his meditation. Not sure of what to do, Eren stood there looking around the room contemplating what he should try next. As his eyes fell back upon the desk, he noticed a cellphone sitting to the side. Cautiously, he reached and picked up the phone, hoping the music player could still be accessed from the locked screen. And lucky for him it could. He pressed the side button on the device, and it lit up displaying the music app controls and not a pin code pad. Taking a deep breath with a dry sallow, he hit the pause symbol before placing the phone on the middle of the desk's top.
Levi was just finishing the last verse of the song when he noticed the only sound he heard was his own voice vibrating in his ears. Confused, he opened his eyes and sat up to find the answer to why the music had stopped and was taken off guard to find that Eren Yeager was standing right in front of his desk. Feeling relieved instead of what should have been outraged, Levi gingerly removed the bulky head gear from around his ears and set them back in the side drawer before quietly closing it, all the while never taking his eyes off of a certain brunet. Remembering his professional position, he clasped his hands upon his desk. "Are you here to explain to me why you weren't in class today? If you're simply curious about the material cover, you shouldn't have come all the way here. You can get the notes from someone on Monday. I'm more than sure you remember my attendance policy."
Rolling his eyes along with a small huff Eren responded, "How could I forget?"
Arching one thin sculpted eyebrow, Levi stared the teen down. "What are you doing here Eren?"
"I need for you to sign this then I'll be on my way." Eren presented his professor with the form he had almost forgotten he was carrying.
Skeptically, Levi took the paper in hand and almost instantly recognized what it was. "I'm not signing this," the noirette said as he pushed the sheet back to Eren.
Eren ignored the page and eyed Levi intensely. "And why not?"
"Because it's in your best interest for me not to allow this to go through."
"My best interest? What the hell do you care if I drop your class or not?" Eren asked.
Pushing a sigh through his nose, Levi set the sheet down between them and brought his hands back together. "I'm thinking about your future. Too many W's on your transcript doesn't look good for grad school of any kind. And my class is easy for you. You could pass without even trying hard."
"It was an easy class for me, but not anymore. I can't concentrate on it long enough to study and understand anything from it."
"You know I would never let you fail my class. I would take responsibility as your teacher and make sure you passed," Levi reassured.
"Oh? Are you talking about giving an "easy A" for sleeping with the professor type of responsibility?"
Levi slammed his palms on the desk before he stood up and yelled at Eren, "You are not dropping my class, and that's final!" Levi had no clue why he was getting so worked up about this. Given everything that had happened, he should have been happy that Eren wanted to drop his class. But he wasn't. He was enraged on a level he rarely, if ever, got. Staring hard at Eren with his jaws clenched, he felt his rationality flying out the window as he was overtaken by the urge to forcefully take hold of Eren by the hair and slam the brunet on his desk to then climb on top of the boy and claim his mouth, or possibly other parts, with every bit of frustration he currently felt. "And I expect to see you bright and early Monday morning for class!"
"Ha, are you out of your mind? Do you really expect me to go and sit every day in your class knowing the way I feel about you and with me knowing that you could care less about it? I wouldn't just fail your class; I would probably fail all of my other classes as well. But really it wouldn't matter. The only reason I had to move to New Orleans in the first place is meaningless now."
"And what was that?"
"You."
'Well, fuck me,' Levi thought as he fought to keep his same enraged expression on his face. Knowing that he was in the presence of a fan obsessed enough to move across country just to meet him should have set off warning bells in Levi's head, instead it stirred and mixed with the heat already set ablaze as they yelled at each other. And he felt a crack being chipped away from his walls, leaving him feeling confused as fuck. "Eren, I…I don't…"
"You don't have to say anything. Yeah, I know. It's pathetic and crazy as fuck. I moved 2000 miles away from home just to get fucked and tossed by the man I had been waiting to meet for 6 years. Well at least I don't have to waste anymore of my time on someone who's only interested in smashing a good hole."
"You're not being fair."
"How is that not being fair? It's the truth right?"
"No, it's not!" Levi hissed with a tight jaw and his nose flaring in frustration. He couldn't take it anymore. He hated that he had given Eren the idea that he was nothing more than a good lay. Because he was more than that to Levi. How much more? Levi had no clue, but he did feel that Eren deserved better from him. "Why can't you understand? Even if I did want the same more from you that you want from me, I can't. I'm your professor who is ten years older than you. Can't you see my hands are tied? There are so many moral and ethical lines to cross it makes my head spin thinking about it all the time.
Levi's face and eyes became softer as he looked deep into the emerald green that rocked his world upside down. "I already told you that night. You were my exception."
Eren gasped as his eyes widened at the sudden confession. He had been right. There was this connection that still tied them together. Eren rushed around the wooden furniture to take Levi in his arms, but the man pushed him back and pulled away. Perplexed Eren said, "But you just told me—"
"I told you that you were L's exception. Not Dr. Ackerman's."
"But it's that the same thing? You're the same person." Eren said, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion.
Levi softly shook his head in disagreement. "You have no clue how much I wish that was true right now."
"I don't understand… That makes no sense." Eren said slightly frustrated as he watched Levi silently walk to the window and lean on the sill with a look of forlorn as he peered out the window. Eren had to stop for a moment and appreciatively study the way the sun shone through the glass and lit Levi's pale skin and black hair with a beautiful glow. The small singer was truly, naturally breathtaking, and Eren wanted to commit every image of the man to memory. So he stood silently taking in every drop of resplendent detail his mind could absorb.
Meanwhile, Levi was at a loss at how to make Eren understand his personal dogma when even to him things were complicated. "You see they are two separate people, each with different needs and priorities. It even goes as far as them both having different personalities. It was a separation I used to distinguish who was in charge at different points in time to make both of them work together, or else one would overtake the other. This was something that I struggled with in the beginning, and it almost all fell apart. For you see, L is a very seductive creature, even to me. So, in a way, they have become two sides of the same coin; thereby, they can never meet each other. Which means the person you are looking for is not here." 'Nor is the one I am.'
"I really can't comprehend all of what you said. But I get that you need to put boundaries between them. However, I do have one question."
At that Levi finally turned from the window and looked at Eren. "Yes?"
When the noirette turned to Eren, his face was the most unanimated Eren had ever seen it, lacking any and all emotion much like a porcelain doll. And in that moment, Eren would bet just as fragile. So in a lower voice than he had been using all afternoon, he asked his question. "Where does Levi fit into all of that? Because the person I'm looking for is him."
Though Levi's face did not change, Eren saw the look of surprise in the singer's eyes before he turned his back completely to him. Eren waited for him to respond but when he didn't, he pressed on. "I'm looking for the man that gently and erotically gave me a shower as I gave him one in return that night, and not the man that started to fuck me in it. Though. That part was good too. But I'm also looking for the man that trusted me enough to completely loss every ounce of self-control and fucked me into the mattress so hard I couldn't walk for three days."
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but that was L that did all of that. That's the thing that makes him so alluring. He has no self-control."
"I don't believe that. You see, I'm not sure, but I don't think you have them as separated as you thought. If L really has no self-control then he would have already taken over Dr. Ackerman. And Dr. Ackerman is so damn controlling that there is no way he would let L take over because of the chaos he would cause. That is, unless there was someone with control over both of them, and that person is Levi. A coin may have two sides, but they are both connected by a bevel…
Levi is the bevel, and who I want is Levi."
Hearing this teen say it was "Levi" that he wanted made the man minutely quiver as his heart drummed in his chest while sending a heat sweep through his entire body. Unlike the blazing feel of arousal, this one was softer, and it felt beautifully joyful coursing through his veins. Every word Eren said was true. He had merely set rules, hard boundaries, that he had to follow when he was outside in public as L and Dr. Ackerman mostly to keep the two identities separated so no one would find out about the other. But Eren knew all of them. Hell, "Levi" had even given the brunet his real name. Something he didn't share even as Dr. Ackerman. But the thing Levi was not going to admit was that ever since he had walked out that shower (and even possibly before that) he had never been able to fully don either of his alternate personas around Eren. There was just something about the boy that pulled Levi to the surface not allowing him to hide behind a mask or a desk. "Fine. You want Levi. You can have him. But I'm warning you right now, he's not going to be what you wanted."
"No, I think he is exactly what I want."
"He is harder, tougher, and crankier than you could ever imagine."
"When I have a goal, I'm a lot stronger than you think. And I'm always up for a challenge."
"It will be a challenge indeed; nonetheless, he is the only one you'll ever have a real chance with. Well, if you do manage to win him over somehow."
"To be honest, I think I already have."
"Oh, Really?" Levi turned around, arms crossed at the waist with one eyebrow raised for a second before his face set into a hard scowl.
When Levi finally turned around and questioned Eren, the teen released a shiver. And in that moment Eren didn't know if he would shit in his pants or cum on the spot. Levi's whole demeanor had instantly changed into something completely darker and commanding and… arousing? Eren had never been into BDSM play, but in that moment all he wanted to do was drop to his knees and beg Levi to step on him. He wanted to bend over, bare ass up, and plead for this man to spank him again and again. "It really is you."
"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?"
Shaking his head Eren replied, "I don't know. The words just came out on their own."
Levi stayed standing by the window with his arms around his waist wondering what exactly did the teen mean by those four little words. What was it that Eren saw in him now that he had completely dropped the "masks" that had been his refuge for so long? He examined the boy with a critical eye. And for the first time in a long time he actually saw Eren, not his student, not his fan, but simply Eren. And the sight pulled on him tighter than a tow rope. But he held steady in place knowing that he was diving headfirst into waters unknown. However, even though the hairs on the back of his neck were raised signaling danger, he wasn't afraid. But he knew he had to be cautious. "Just what the hell do you want from me Eren?"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you know what I want from you, Levi."
"You're a little shithead. Do you know that?"
"I might have been told a time or two already," Eren said with a devious smirk.
Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, "God, I must have lost my mind," Levi said, shaking his head. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to ground himself before his blue eyes drilled hard into Eren. "Look, just because I have acknowledged your feelings and existence in my life doesn't mean I'm going to happily hop in bed with you. There are still lines that can't be crossed while we are on this campus. And if you decide the answer to that is dropping, we can call this whole thing off right now. Here's a tip, you'll have to win over Reveille before you can get to Levi. So running away from your class work is not the way to solve this problem, and if you can't stick it out then you don't deserve me."
Eren thought about Levi's words for a second unraveling the message between the lines before he responded, "I can respect that. So what happens when we're off this campus?"
"As of right now, nothing. You are still my student. However, we can try to be friends. Neither of us knows much about each other besides names, occupation, and what type of music we like. Hell, I'm not even 100% sure, you know my actual age."
"You're 28 years old. Smoke Dunhill White cigarettes. You prefer to drink coffee in the mornings and Earl Gray tea in the afternoons. And you can definitely hold your liquor. Favorites are Gray Goose and Jäger. You're an insomniac who usually writes and composes your songs on nights when you can't get to sleep because it helps calm your mind… Oh and you also have the most strikingly sexy body I have ever seen."
"Fucking rabid fanboy."
"I would prefer the term 'rabid fuckboy' thank you," Eren said with a flirtatiously smug smirk.
Levi tilted his head down and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was practically suicide for him to get farther involved with Eren, but there was something about the teen that caused a delightful desire to tingle inside him unlike anything he had felt in his life. It was wild and uncensored. And his whole being begged for more. Eren would challenge every bit of him, but that was also part of the allure. In a very firm tone Levi replied, "Boundaries. There has to be boundaries." Levi dropped his hand to his hip and looked up pointingly at Eren. "And we play by my rules. When I am your teacher, you are simply my student. So no sexploitives out of you when I am trying to do my job. Got it, you horny little fuck?"
"Got it."
"Secondly, you already know that I am a very private person, so don't be expecting me to invite you to my house any time soon. If ever." Christ, the last thing he needed was for Hanji to make a surprised visit and find him fucking Eren against his refrigerator or bent over his dining room table.
"Well, what about my place?"
"Do you live alone?"
"No. My sister lives with me."
"Then that's not going to work. It would look really suspicious for your professor to be making house calls."
"She doesn't have to know you're my professor."
"Then how would you explain who I am?"
"Just a friend."
Levi rolled his eyes at the most basic classic line ever. "'Just a friend'," he said with air quotes. "She would have to be totally stupid to believe that lie. I'm 10 years older than you."
"Yeah, but you don't look it. Especially when you're dressed in casual clothes like on the first day of class. The thought you were a professor never crossed my mind until you wrote on the board. You blended in so perfectly with all the other freshman students that I didn't even notice you at first."
"Was that supposed to be a short joke?" Levi asked in a rough tone with his eyebrows scrunched together.
"What..." Eren replied in confusion while he played his words back in his head. "No. No no no no. That's not what I meant." Eren saw Levi give him a skeptical look. "The point is you can still pass for a student. So she won't think twice about it. In fact, she would probably be too happy that I finally made a friend here to question it."
The uncertainty didn't completely fall from Levi's face. But there was at least one thing the boy had right: be it gift or curse, people still always mistook the noirette for a student rather than a professor when meeting him randomly on campus for the first time. A small flitter of relief—or was it pride—waved over the man when Eren confessed that Levi would be the first person the brunet would be taking to his house. So the boy really didn't seem to play around. There was just one last thing Levi knew he needed to be careful about. "Is she also a rabid fan of No Name?"
"As if. Mikasa tolerates my obsession at best. That concert was the first one I could convince her to come to with me. And that was only because Armin couldn't. So I wouldn't be going alone."
"Who's Armin?" Levi inquired a little too briskly for his own liking.
The surprised look on Eren's face showed he was not expecting that. "Oh… He's my best friend back in Cali. Him, you could call a fan. He's the one that always came with me to your concerts in the past." Eren reached a hand to scratch the back of his neck. "Though, sometimes he acted more like a chaperon than a best friend."
"Best friends keep you out of trouble just as much as they get you into it." Levi said plainly as a crazy ponytail brunet with shitty glasses came to his mind and their words blanketed him in reassurance. Hanji had told him they and Mike would be ok if he decided to actually date someone. They believed in Levi to know who the right person would be to trust with their secret.
"Ha, Ain't that the truth."
Levi nodded in agreeance. Then hoping he would not come to regret it, he extended his hand. "Give me your cell phone."
Without a shred of hesitation, Eren responded to the command. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the device. Being finally allowed to step forward, Eren trembled in anticipation as he swiped a pattern on the screen before he stood next to the singer and wordlessly, blushing, handed Levi the phone.
Levi took the small device in hand and almost dropped the phone and changed his mind the moment he saw the wallpaper. It was a very provocative image of L that mirrored an underwear ad. In his mouth was the hem of the long sleeved oversized navy T-shirt he wore showing off rock hard abs above unbuttoned and mostly unzipped black skinny jeans hanging low on his hips barely covering a pair of wide waistband gray briefs that read "No Name" on the white elastic instead of the usual designer name. And though the image was 5 years old, Levi remembered it all too well. This particular shoot idea had been the product of a bet between him and Hanji, and needless to say, it became the band's #1 selling print still to this day despite retiring the image 2 years ago. Well, at least he wouldn't have to send Eren nudes.
Acting as if the background didn't faze him, Levi pressed the phone tile, activated the keypad, and hit the call button after punching in ten digits. Seconds later his cell on the desk started to dance until he hit the red receiver circle. Having accomplished his objective, he brought his eyes back to the teen standing in front of him. "I don't want you saving any of my names in your phone. The last thing I need is for someone else to find out about me as well as link us together. I haven't spent the last 8 years keeping my identities secret and separate for it to fall apart now. So we have got to be very cautious." Levi offered the phone back to its owner, and placed it in his palm. But before he pulled his hand away, he stared deeply into Eren's amazing green eyes. "Congratulations kid. You're now one step closer to Levi."
As the gravity of his idol's words sank in, on top of the affection reflecting off mesmerizing liquid blue, Eren swallowed hard as he got lost in the singer's unveiled eyes. He'd better not fuck this up. He couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but he was almost positive that he had to be the first person whom Levi had ever let in this deep into his real life since he had become L.
Eren stood there gazing into dilated cobalt eyes as the man stared back at him silently. In a daze, Eren lifted up his free hand to Levi's cheek and whispered, "How can you be so beautiful?" as he lightly caressed it with the back of his fingers.
'You're the beautiful one.' Levi thought before he stepped out of reach from Eren and walked back over to the front of his desk. "Slow. We are going to take things slow. I'm going to be totally up front with you and tell you now I have absolutely no desire to sleep with you as long as you're my student. However, I don't see a problem if we start texting each other. It's a convenient way to see if this can even go somewhere."
"Yeah. I guess." Eren was a bit disappointed that Levi was keeping his distance, but it was better than nothing. He walked away from the window and moved closer to the desk. "Can I call you sometimes too?"
"You can try. But that doesn't mean I'll answer. I'm usually busy with my classes and the band." Levi pointed one finger up aggressively towards the teen. "And don't you ever try texting or calling me during my classes. If you do, I'll block your number and whatever this is," waving his hand between him and Eren, "will be over permanently. Understand?"
"I get it. I won't bother you when you are teaching. But that means on Fridays after 1500 since you're done with teaching I can contact you at any time until Monday morning." Receiving no rebuke, Eren took the two steps needed to stand next to Levi in front of the desk. "I guess that's not too bad of a place to start."
"Oh, and one last thing," Levi said with a commanding atmosphere swirling back around him. "You have to take me for your Psych 102 class."
Eren's face fell at this. "Huh? Why? That means I'll have to wait even longer before I can—"
"How long have you waited already to meet me Eren?"
"Six years."
"Well, after waiting that long I don't think another six months is going to be all that difficult."
"Yeah, but you weren't literally right in front of me, and I didn't know what you tasted like back then." Eren took a long drink of Levi up and down. It didn't matter what the man wore—or didn't—he still was the picture of hard sex incarnate. Which consequently, made the teen hard.
"I thought you said that you were up for a challenge?"
Rolling his bottom lip through his teeth, Eren moved to stand practically on top of Levi before inching in all the way, pushing his pelvis flushed with singer, and pinning the noirette between him and the desk. "Oh, I'm definitely up for something," he said and thirstily swayed his hips.
"Looks like you need reminding of where we are." Levi warned before he grabbed one of Eren's hands and twisted it. "Down boy," he commanded as he bent back Eren's thumb in a crippling hold that brought the brunet to his knees whimpering and panting. The sound of Eren's cries were even better than what he remembered, and the earlier strange heat stirred through his body again with the need to slam the boy over his desk and make him pay for his depraved behavior. Out of frustrations caused by the teen, Levi kicked Eren in the middle of his chest, sending the boy flying backwards to fall on the floor sideways a few feet away. "Now. Get the fuck out of my office this instant." He barked, staring daggers at Eren.
"You're a fucking sadist, aren't you?"
Saxe eyes gleamed as Levi's thin eyebrow twitched. "Maybe."
A/N: To those of you reading this, Thank you so much for sticking with me through the really hard stuff. And I am over joyed to say that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Hope you all enjoy the new developments to follow from this chapter.
Please leave comments to feed my starving muse. I love hearing what you guys thought , "felt", or any other reaction you had while reading ;) Y'all comments bring me so much joy and amusement when I read them and somedays truly keep me going ;3