He sat at his bench, his head supported with his left hand and his right one rolled his pencil on a wild lock that had fallen from his updo. He was supposed to review his notes and suggest a new approach for an experiment that had failed the previous week, yet his mind wandered to the events that had unrolled a couple of days ago. He knew he needed to talk to Levi, at least he could provide some clarity on why it happened, though he wasn't sure he would show up at the lab. He had already asked Petra, but she didn't know. Eren thought of texting him under the pretext that he had a novel research approach as he'd asked, he would suggest a meeting and take that time to tell the professor what he needed.

The door opened in an urgent squeak; Professor Ackerman paced in pulling the sleeves of his beige overcoat off his arms. "Professor," Eren called standing up whilst Levi snapped his white coat that hung behind the door, "may I have a word with you?"

"Walk with me." Levi didn't face the boy; it was visible he was in a rush. He quickly moved to the shorter man's side as he stepped out of that lab heading toward the basement. He opened up a heavy metal door and let Eren walk in first into a cubicle separated by the previous door and a see-through acrylic door that led to another lab. Levi explained that, since one could see to the adjacent lab, the tight, claustrophobic cubicle was meant to be a stand-by point when the incubators were opened to avoid contamination. Inside the laboratory three laminar flow chambers could be seen as well as four cell incubators; on the other side Eren spotted a lonely bench supporting a microscope, a laptop, and some weird devices he had no idea what they were used for. "What did you want to tell me?" Levi asked as he opened one of the incubators and took a pile of several flasks with a red liquid inside each one.

"Well, um-" He hesitated to see the professor step toward the microscope. He sat at the tall chair pressing a button that made the microscope come to life. He turned around in his seat to look at the boy raising his eyebrows as if to give permission to carry on his conversation. "Well, Kenny was here on Friday." Eren said studying the other's face which remained neutral waiting for further information, "Me and the guys were waiting at the entrance for Mikasa and Sasha to go to the city, you know, to have dinner" he continued "and all of a sudden I felt someone's hands grabbing both my shoulders. He said something like 'you should be careful who you choose to spend your time with' and walked away chuckling like a creep. Mikasa saw him from afar and later confirmed he was Kenny" Eren told the story but left out the part where Kenny referred his nephew, "He's a dangerous, complicated man, he'll cause you nothing but trouble, kid." His words played over and over in his head, it was obvious he meant Levi, yet he couldn't understand why Kenny had approached him. However, Eren failed to mention this part to his supervisor because… he didn't want to hurt his feelings with such harsh words? Although it seemed Levi didn't quite have feelings to be hurt. Was it because he refused to believe Kenny's words?

"That son of a bitch comes into my life, breaks into my house, and terrorizes my students." The deep voice of the professor broke the silence. He had spoken in such a matter-of-factly tone, Eren found unbearable. Then he realized the tall, weird man had committed a crime right on campus.

"He- he broke into your house?" His hands curled into fists. "Did he hurt you?"

A ghost of a smirk crossed his lips "No."

"You have to report this to the police." Eren's voice was loud, urgent.

"I can take care of it myself" His husky voice followed the younger's tone. "Don't worry about it, I can deal with him on my own." He stood up.

"How can you say that? What if he was armed, huh? That would have been phenomenal don't you think?" He yelled his sarcastic retort stepping in the direction of the professor. What was he thinking being so calm in a situation like that?

"He was, but-"

"Levi!" Eren's eyes widened with concern, but before he could argue further the older man grabbed his sweater at the collar and pulled him down, the younger's face 4 inches from his own.

"Shut up." Levi ordered between gritted teeth. The closeness made Eren swallow. "You don't know shit about me, Eren, this is none of your business. This is between me and him, and I don't want you more involved than you already are, so you're going to shut your damned mouth and not comment anything with anyone. Do you understand, brat?" The boy gave him a small nod.

Levi noticed Eren's facial expression had changed, but he couldn't pinpoint where in the conversation. The worried, severe eyes had darkened, the jaw that before had been clenched was relaxed, lips parted, and his shallow quick breathing was deeper and more audible. Like a magnet he felt like he was being pulled toward the boy. "Eren," Levi half whispered, his tongue brushing the side of his upper lip as he gazed the boy's bottom one, "what do you want?" Eren straightened his back at the question, his pupils decreased letting the green of his eyes shine through.

"Nothing," he said to buy time to play back the conversation they were having, he felt like he'd been woken up from a weird dream and he couldn't quite tell what was real life and what wasn't. "I was just worried about you." He spat as if he had something to hide.

"I appreciate it, but you have nothing to worry about" Levi rubbed the back of his neck returning to the microscope. "I have a meeting in ten minutes, I guess you're free to go if you want." He said into the ocular lens. Eren stood still observing the man behave naturally like nothing had happened meanwhile he was feeling dizzy, and his muscles were tense. His mind was racing as he himself raced to his dorm. Armin wasn't there which was a relief, he wanted to be alone, digest the situation, replay the events one by one to squeeze out any information that could explain the sour confusion he was feeling. Levi got angry at him for prying… he'd never seen the raven-haired man so worked up, he always seemed composed and collected, clearly the 'Kenny issue' bugged him more than he showed. Despite the aggravation, Eren wanted to kiss him. As he spoke Eren could only imagine how his lips would feel against his. What if I kiss him right now? What if I grab his face and bring his lips to mine? What would he do, would he push me away? Punch me? Pull me toward him? Would he even react? Then the man called his name. Was it because Eren was absentminded or because he could see desire in his face? The way he said his name, his voice, his expression… a warm sensation travelled from his belly to his pelvis. He wanted to kiss me, too.