Levi was in the back room of the shop where he worked in the afternoons, carefully rinsing the bloodstain out of his scrub top with cold water. Thankfully, it was almost gone. This made him feel a bit more relaxed—scrubs were expensive. For him, anyway.

When it was almost gone he applied a tiny bit of soap and gently scrubbed.

As he worked, his mind drifted to the brown-haired kid from his child development class. He was really cute in a lean, rangy way. Levi blushed suddenly. He was flattered and confused about the guy asking him out. Had he been serious? Why in the world would he ask Levi, of all people, out? Maybe he was just pulling Levi's leg. It had happened before.

Levi bent his head and scrubbed harder.

Eventually, the stain seemed to be gone. Levi rinsed his scrub top, wrung it out, folded it, and carefully put it in a plastic shopping bag and tied it closed. He went to work on his hand.

Jesus, he had to stop doing this.

The knuckles on his left hand were raw and split. Blood had oozed down his fingers and he paused to anxiously inspect his sleeves for blood. Satisfied that none had gotten on his shirt, he industriously washed until there wasn't a trace left and applied salve and gauze to cover everything.

He didn't know why he did it, what compelled him. People largely didn't give a shit. If he saw injustice in the world and confronted it, he was most often met with indifference or worse. One time he had intervened with a man who was beating his wife/girlfriend in a McDonald's and the woman had actually attacked Levi. He sighed. Well, at least the brown-haired kid had seemed to notice.

Levi felt a flush pinking up his thin cheeks. Jeez, the kid had been cute.

He pulled his green apron over his head, tying it in the back, preparing to start work. He let his mind run the conversation he and the brown-haired kid had had, lingering over and over on the young man asking him out.

Friday was Valentine's Day and Eren was walking to the store for beer. On the way, he came up to the town's only answer to a variety store in the neighborhood. It was a Dollar General down the street from his apartment. It was open till 10 and Eren decided to wander in. It was close to closing. The store was pretty busy for that time of night, there were at least a half a dozen customers (all men) who were rather desperately hunting through the meager remains of flowers and chocolate. Eren wandered around, bored.

Abruptly he spotted the much-picked-over display of Valentine cards and headed for it. He had no one to buy for but it would be funny to look them over and snort at all the smarmy sentimentality.

When he got close he realized that there was someone there, looking intently at the cards. The man was short, much shorter than him and was dressed in all black.

Eren recognized him as the man from his Child Development class, the weird guy, the one who had fought Floch. Oh, fuck, it was him. He stared rather rudely and curiously. He'd not realized the man was so short, even though he'd walked right next to him. Still cute, though.

Did he have a significant other? Hmm, that was interesting. Maybe that's why he'd turned him down for a hang-out.

Eren, acutely aware that he'd been shot down last time, positioned himself off to one side and observed the man up close out of the corners of his eyes.

The man was focused, picking up cards one at a time and reading the inscriptions.

Eren sidled closer. The man ignored him.

Eren realized that the man had a pretty good-looking body to go with his attractive face, height aside. He was muscular, broad-shouldered, and narrow-waisted. His black hair was styled in an undercut and looked good on his skin as pale as milk. While he read, his thin lips moved in concentration. Eren remembered that he'd said he was bi-sexual and that caused a weird flutter in his gut. He steeled his courage. He wasn't going to fail again.

"Uh, hey."

The man startled and stared at him, silent. His eyes glinted, almost silver.

"I never introduced myself. I'm Eren."

The man shifted uncomfortably, hesitated, then resumed looking at the cards.

Well, that was rude.

"What was your name, again?"

The man looked at him again, seeming irritated. His thin black brows drew down into a scowl. He didn't seem to know what to do other than frown. Even frowning he was still kinda hot, Eren decided.

"Need a card for your girl?"

The man looked down at the card in his hands. Eren noticed the sweater he was wearing—black of course—was worn at the elbows and the cuffs were frayed. He wondered again if the man was actually homeless.

"Not that it's any of your business, but no. I'm just looking."

Fuck, there was that sexy voice again. Was he actually flirting with a possibly homeless guy? Well, it was the principle of the thing, now.

"That's kinda weird," Eren said, "I mean, standing in a store on Valentine's, just looking at the cards."

The scowl came back, more fierce than before and the man's pale grey eyes narrowed. "I can do what I want."

Eren shrugged and picked up a card, mimicking the man and reading the inside. "True. I guess it is kinda romantic."

Eren was delighted to see two small spots of color appear in the man's thin cheeks. Despite his musculature, he was very skinny. He went back to reading, carefully closing the card he had, returning it, and picking up another. For a minute they both just stood and read cards.

"So does that make you a romantic?" The man suddenly asked quietly.

It was Eren's turn to start, then he recovered his cool. He turned to the man. "Nah, I'm just wasting time. Valentine's day is so lame."

The man replaced a card and picked up another. "I don't think so," the man said, almost too low for Eren to hear.

Eren fidgeted, suddenly embarrassed. Had the man lost someone, maybe? "Shit … I'm sorry …"

The man shrugged, intently reading the new card.

"We should really hang out sometime," Eren said. "I never asked … are you single?"

The man nodded, not looking up.

Eren's heart did a funny double thump. If he had just lost someone through a bad break-up or worse …

Belatedly, Eren realized that his asking the man if he was single might have been hurtful. Eren was a spoiled man. Even he grudgingly knew this. He didn't usually have any significant consequences of his actions.

But this one gave him pause.

"Well … I'll just get out of your hair, I guess," he blurted and shifted his feet. He still wanted to talk to the guy, though, and he knew exactly why. "Say, what's your major? I … I mean not many guys take Child Development."

The man sighed. "Listen, Eren, was it? I'm not really in the mood …"

Yeah. He had definitely fucked up. Poor guy had lost somebody, probably. Eren threw up his hands placatingly. "I get it, I get it. Sorry. I'll leave you alone." He turned to go then hesitated. "You never told me your name."

The man stared flatly at him. "It's Levi."

"Cool, Levi. Well nice to meet you. Happy Valentine's."

Levi looked very, very sad and Eren left quickly.

Levi walked home in a funk. He was drawn in every year to Valentine's day and every year he cursed himself for doing it. But he loved it. Really he did. He loved the decorations, loved the cards and the flowers, loved (and hated) seeing the couples walking hand in hand or cuddling in the chill February weather. And here he was …. alone.

He jammed his hands into his jacket pockets—he had no gloves—and huddled down into his collar in the cold. The thin chilled drizzle of rain began to make tick, tick, tick sounds of sleet tapping onto the frozen sidewalk. The thick grey cloud cover was oppressive and seemed to be pushing down on the very roofs of the buildings.

His mind turned from Valentine's stuff to his unexpected encounter in the Dollar General.

Levi had never really noticed the kid from his class before the fight and now he found himself thinking about him often. He even had a name now. Eren? Yeah, that was it. He couldn't help his mind wandering into dangerous territory. Eren was an attractive thing, long and tall with warm tan skin and sporting a mass of chocolate-colored hair that Levi was sure had never felt a comb. It looked soft, though.

Levi shook his head. Jeez. Romantic indeed. He was such a fucking loser.