CHAPTER 3

"Mmmmh,"

I rolled over on my stomach so I could hug the pillow under my head. I buried my face in it, humming again. I was half asleep on the couch in the living room, and it was already around noon. I paid no attention to my surroundings, as I was still trying to keep the dream that I had been dreaming. It was slowly fading away, but I was persistent. I wanted it to stay put – it had been so nice.

I lifted my right knee up towards my stomach, and tried turning to the side to block the light with the pillow.

"Nghhh..."

I was unaware that both Hanji and Levi was sitting at counter in the kitchen, eating breakfast.

"Should we wake him up?" Hanji asked Levi, who had just shrugged his shoulders, trying to keep in a chuckle.

I suddenly felt a cold hand on my naked waist, and I shuddered.

"No, stop … " I mumbled into the pillow. "Leeevi … " Luckily the pillow muffled the strength in my voice, but unfortunately Hanji had still heard it.

"No Eren, it's Hanji. Who's Levi?" She asked confused.

I quickly came to my senses, sitting up quickly with a blush on my cheeks. It wasn't intentional, but the first thing my eyes saw, was Levi's facial expression. He was looking right at me, with a teasing smile. I felt the shame flood through my body, as I got up.

"Ey, you didn't answer my question!" Hanji said, only making it worse. "Did you dream of somebody? Who was it? Is he hot?" She asked in a loud voice, and I quickly laid a hand on her mouth.

"Shut up, Hanji! It's nothing,"

She grinned with a playful look in her eyes, but eventually sat down again.

"Eren, do you want some breakfast?" Levi said in a casual tone, as if nothing had just happened. I noticed how he looked at me though, and that was the moment I realised that I didn't have a shirt on. Luckily my pants were still there, but I still felt utterly naked.

"Hanji, where's my shirt?!" I said, clearly panicking, while trying to cover myself with my arms.

"You spilled ice cream on it last night, so I'm washing it now,"

When her answer sank it, all colour had left me face. Did that mean … That I was now forced to sit down with them, naked, and eat breakfast like everything was normal?

Hell no. It almost felt like she was doing this on purpose.

"Ah!"

Something had been thrown at my face, and I only nearly caught it in my hands.

A t-shirt?

It was a dark blue one, with some writing on it. I swallowed, and looked up at Levi that had just sat down again to keep eating his cereal. He was acting so normal, it felt weird. Or was I the only one who felt uncomfortable in this situation?

"You can wear mine until yours is dry," He said dryly, averting any form for eye contact suddenly.

A bit reluctant, I pulled the t-shirt down on my head, hoping that it fit. It did, thank god. It wasn't even too tight, but that wasn't a surprise. Even though Levi was shorter and than me, he was still very fit, while I was tall, but very slim. We kinda balanced eachother out, I guessed.

I sat down beside Hanji, so that I was sitting in front of Levi, but it was better than sitting next to him.

"Coffee?" Hanji asked, though she was already putting something in a mug and handing it to me.

I took it, thanking her in the process, and then I didn't say anything else for a long while.

Hanji and Levi started talking casually, as if I wasn't even there, about their lifes and what was happening in them. I listened to their conversation, surprising myself with how willing and eager I was to learn about Levi's daily life.

He wasn't working at the high school, but at the local college, which had made me glad too hear. That clearly showed how right I had been in my decision to go to a different college.

They then started to talk about the students he had.

"Does Amber still do … That thing?" Hanji had asked, laughing just at the memory in hear head. Levi nodded slowly, apparently annoyed with the thought.

"She does. It's starting to affect my concentration, really."

"Haha! She so wants you,"

Levi rolled his eyes, but still smirked at Hanji's response. I was just staring back and forth to the both of them, wishing that they would explain what the girl Amber had actually been doing. Of course I didn't want them to know that I wanted to know, so I just kept my mouth shut, and drank my coffee.

Then they started talking about the weather, and what their plans was for the summer. This was when they finally started to include me in the conversation.

"So I was thinking of going to the beach later, I really want to get a tan!" Hanji said, looking at me rather excited. "What do you think, Eren?"

I shrugged my shoulders, a bit confused.

"S-Sure, do whatever you want?" I asked hesistantly, nut sure what she was thinking.

"GREAT! Then go home and pack your bathing shorts and a towel, and we'll meet there in an hour!"

I stared at her, amazed. Wait, what … ?

"N-No, I have another person to tutor in german," I mumbled, my thumbs fiddling with each other.
"Sorry Hanji, but not this time,"

Hanji's bottom lip started pouting, making her look really sad.

"But, Ereeeeen … " She started clinging to me, forcing me to put my mug away, just so I wouldn't spill on Levi's shirt.

"H-Hanji, no, stop!" I chuckled, as her arms tightened around my waist.

"Pretty please?" She looked up at me with big eyes, almost looking like a puppy. Until Levi hit her on the head with the news paper.

"Hanji, let the boy go. He clearly has responsibilities to take care of, we can't force him to indulge into our fun. Let him just do his job, we can always go another time," Levi said with a mild expression on his face. Hanji let me go, and brushed some dirt off her clothes.

"Fine. Then we'll go tomorrow," She said with a such certainty in her voice, that I almost didn't say anything. Almost.

"I also have an appointment tomorrow,"

She hit me on the upper arm.

"Ow!" I whined, trying to protect myself. "Stop it, it's the truth!"

"Yeah I know, because I'M your appointment tomorrow. And I am the one who chooses where we shall study. So I say that we study at the beach," She put her hands on her hips, with a determined look on her face. "Then I'll get a tan AND learn something at the same time. It's perfect!"

I couldn't really say no to that.

Calm down, it'll be fine.

I tried focusing on my breathing, and soon it became more steady. Of course only until I started looking again. Which I definitely should NOT have done.

Levi was walking towards us, still dripping with water from the ocean that he had just been getting out of. His hair was messy, making his face filled with wet, black locks of hair in front of his eyes. His abs and biceps where bigger than I'd imagine, which resulted in my slightly open mouth, while I tried to suck in all of his sexiness. It wasn't really possible, since it was rather overflooding my body with weird, unknown emotions. My eyes went down, glaring at his tight-fitting swimming shorts, revealing just enough to make my mind wander off into the forbidden areas.

"Close your mouth, brat,"

He was suddenly sitting beside him, with made my mind wake up again.

"S-Sorry," I mumbled, leaning down on my elbows.

I closed my eyes so they wouldn't be blinded by the sun, and just laid there for a while. Hanji was lying to my right, sleeping on her stomach. We had already went through the little exercises that I had taken with me, and now we where just relaxed. On my left side was Levi lying on his back, with his hands behind his head. He had closed his eyes as well, and there was a nice silence around us for a while. Of course, people were screaming and laughing and having fun around us, but that was just background noise. I could easily just tune it out of my head.

I laid down flat on my back, and turned my head to the left so that I could watch Levi's features.

I had been this close to his face before, but I had never had enough time to actually study his face properly.

He was actually beautiful, I concluded.

His small noise, and his slender, soft lips. His closed eyes, revealing long eyelashes, and the thin eyebrows. When the weren't furrowed together, he looked kind of peaceful.

I couldn't stop myself from smiling.

What the hell? Didn't I already decide to keep on hating him?

I bit my bottom lip, rolling onto my side. I raised my left arm up to support my head as a pillow, as my other hand laid in the sand next to his chest.

"Do you like watching people as they are sleeping?" Levi mumbled under his breath, sounding annoyed, though not opening his eyes. My cheeks started blushing, so I was kinda happy that he couldn't see me.

Or could he? Since he did know that I was looking at him …. Shit.

"I could say the same thing about you," I whispered, not wanting to wake Hanji up.

This made a smile spread on Levi's lips, giving him dimples.

Cute, I quickly thought, before realising the meaning behind the word. I mean … Nice. It's a nice smile. Maybe not even nice. Ugh, I couldn't care less, I was starting to get annoyed with myself again, not knowing how the hell I would be able to sort out this odd feelings and inapproriate thoughts …

"This is nice, isn't it?"

Levi had opened his eyes and turned on his side as well, so he could look into my eyes properly. I tried swallowing to lump in my throat, but it wouldn't go anywhere.

Right now I wasn't even sure about my own thoughts … And when he was looking at me like that... How could I resist him?

I forced the memory back into my mind, replaying it over and over.

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you …

I took a deep breath.

"Whatever," I mumbled, sounding distant and not-caring. I had no idea if he bought it.

"Is this your real haircolour?" He suddenly asked, and reached out, turning a brown lock of my hair around his fingers.

I nodded.

"Yeah. I coloured it black in high school,"

He didn't let go of my hair, wuite the contrary. He slowly moved his hand trough my hair, and I closed my eyes at the touch, sighing.

"Hmm … " His voice was thoughtful. "That's why I couldn't recognise you at first,"

I opened my eyes, surprised.

"You didn't recognise me?" I shouldn't have been surprised. I mean, I hadn't recognised him either, at first.

"Yeah. But I guess we're both guilty in that area …"

His hand had stayed at the end of my hair line, gently caressing my neck. In that moment, I just wanted to let everything go, and press my body against his, wanting to hide away. Of course I didn't, but the thought of what stopped me was a bit alarmed.

I didn't want to do it because there was people around. We were in public, for god's sake … Wait. Did that mean, that I wouldn't mind it if we were in private?

Afraid of my own competence and judgement, I bit my bottom lip again, hard. Levi noticed, reaching up with his second hand to grab my chin.

"Don't do that. You'll just end up bleeding," He said, with a sigh of irritation.

I let go of my lip, but he wasn't letting go of me. I saw how his eyes flickered, and I knew what he wanted to do. What he was about to do.

Our faces were suddenly too close for comfort, and I could his warm breath against my skin. I wanted to pull away, but his eyes was fixating on mine, making me unable to move.

"I don't understand … How you can still have this power over me," I whispered, my voice shaking. "After all this time … "

I have no idea why I had just confessed that, but I felt like I was on drugs. Like being too close to Levi for too long was making my head spin.

He didn't answer though, just kept our gaze locked tight. After a few long, almost painful seconds, we heard a yawn behind me, and I was finally able to roll away from him.

"Good morning," I laughed, sitting up so I could look at Hanji, who looked very disoriented.

"Ugh … I feel like I'm going to get a sunburn," She mumbled, looking at her arms. "How long were I out?"

"40 minutes, I think. You'll be fine, you wore sun screen, right?"

Hanji's face lost colour.
"Where I supposed to do that?"

Silence. Then laughter.

"Hanji, you are an idiot," Levi said, while getting up. "Let's get you home, before the sun sets you on fire,"

Hanji looked at him as if believing that that could actually happen. This resulted in more laughter from both of us.

We packed our things up, and Levi drove us home. I had insisted on just driving back to their place, but Levi wouldn't accept it. He was very dominant, and ended up driving me home to my apartment.

Damn it. Now he knows where I live, I thought to myself as I watched the car drive away.