Eren was not very eloquent, let alone awake, when he saw Levi again. He had managed, by some anti-miracle, to wake up thirty minutes late, and trip in the shower, leaving him with a beautiful bruise on each of his arms, both already several shades of deep blue and purple.
During his first trip out the front door on this beautiful, oh-so-lucky Thursday morning, he'd realized he put his shirt on inside-out. The second trip, he realized he forgot his keys on the table. Now on the third trip, Levi was sitting outside, under the eucalyptus, sipping coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. Eren wasn't ready to see Levi yet. In fact, he was about ten thousand leagues away from being ready to see Levi face-to-face, but there he was, dumbstruck outside of the apartment complex, running late for work, Levi's ring buried deep in his pocket where he'd put it before leaving his apartment the first time without a second though. He didn't flinch when Levi called out something to him that sounded suspiciously like, "You look like a bag of smashed ass, but good morning," but he did when their eyes met.
The most logical thing to do was to fish Levi's ring out of his pocket and throw it at him, like he'd imagined doing about forty times while trying to fall asleep. He does. He throws it with a liveliness he didn't really feel, and it whizzed past the older man's head and landed somewhere in the grass behind him.
"I thought about keeping it," he yelled to Levi as he started down the sidewalk. "But the idea of throwing it at you was too tempting!"
"Your aim is absolute shit, try harder next time."
Should've just thrown it away.
Levi, of course, was acting like he had done absolutely nothing wrong the previous day, like the bastard he was. He was frustratingly good at making himself look innocent, giving Eren a listless little wave that mirrored his stoic expression. Eren quickly decided that it was entirely unfair for Levi to be able to sit there with a clear conscience, still wearing whatever he wore to bed. He had no problems to worry about currently; Eren was the one taking the butt of the joke. He was now dubbed the bad guy, he was sure. He wouldn't be surprised if he came home to Marco informing him that the group of women that had supported Levi so much during the scene started a 'book club' just to talk about them. They seemed like the kind of people to do that.
He would've assumed that Levi had actually forgotten all about it, until the man had to go off and open his mouth. "Have a fabulous day at work, darling."
Eren turned, just for a moment, to shoot him a sickeningly sweet smile.
"Thank you, love munchkin," he replied, before he could even think to stop himself. He bypassed his frustrations and confusions just for Levi for this one. "I'll give you the night of your life when I get back!"
He barely heard Levi's snort, but he took it as a wordless victory, a way of saying, "Alright, you've either gotten me beat or I want to save that poor old man who keeps staring at us from any more torture." He preferred having Levi beat.
Eren broke into a jog not long after, moving past the morning walkers and the broken militia of cats (they only seemed to conspire in one place under trees in the warm afternoons). He was lucky to make it to work only about five minutes late, much of his lost time made up with his relatively fast paced commute, even despite Levi's distractions. Jean tried to stop him to ask him why he was late, but he just pushed past the bastard, ignoring every word that came out of his mouth, in favor of clocking in.
"You look like shit, dude," Jean reminded him, eyebrows risen, once he was clocked in and out at the front with him. "Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"
"Almost didn't wake up at all," he muttered, picking up the stack of game cases that needed to be stickered and put out on display. "I guess my alarm didn't go off or something. Almost wish I had just slept in so late I didn't have to show up here and deal with your hideous face."
"Harsh." Jean rolled his eyes, fishing out another stack of cases for him. He dropped them over by Eren's work station and smiled innocently. "That would just mean more work for you to do tomorrow."
"Do you even fucking do anything around here?"
"He stands around with his thumb up his ass, if that's what you're asking."
Eren snorted at Annie's bit of input from the office, much to Jean's dismay. The taller man muttered under his breath, something about them being in league, teaming up against him. A pattern of Eren getting assistance from Annie, who was probably working through the massive stack of returns they had left on her desk for her the afternoon before while she was off doing God knows what, in picking on Jean in between actually doing his work continued for a while, or at least until someone sheepishly squeezed through the front door. Eren glanced up from his pile of covers and stickers to see Marco standing in front of him, hands behind his back, with an ever-present apologetic smile.
"I guess you dropped your wallet in the lobby," he said softly, already holding the folded, warn leather wallet out to Eren. "Levi found it. He told me not to give it to you and something about you making him search for half an hour in the grass for his ring, but . . ."
Eren felt himself sag a little, before patting his back pockets in search of the wallet that was most definitely being held out to him. He let out a huff and accepted it gratefully. He tried to be inconspicuous as he unfolded it and peeked in to make sure Levi hadn't taken any of his bills after the ring stunt earlier. Everything was still in place and intact.
"You're literally an angel," breathed Eren. "Thanks, man . . . I guess I'm just having a really off day. I really appreciate it."
Marco laughed softly. "Who wouldn't have an off day after something last night? I'm sure you're still shaken up."
Oh Christ, he still thinks me and Levi were a thing.
"Uh, Marco—"
"Shh." He hushed Eren, holding a finger up to his lips and winking. "You two better work things out and get back together. I've never seen him get so upset over someone."
It was an act, that's why, he wanted to say, but fuck he was already leaving and waving goodbye to both Eren and Jean. He realized, after the door swung shut after Marco, that he really didn't have a choice anymore. Nobody was going to listen to him on the subject, it was almost better pretending like he was Levi's beloved ex-fiancé, and they were going through a pathetic rough patch.
It upset him, of course, the concept of that whole non-existent relationship. He knew that Levi wouldn't deny it for the sake of theatrics and for the sake of giving the women in the apartment something to gossip about, but he was almost upset by the fact that it would never be a reality. It was a huge joke to Levi.
Why the fuck does that bother me so much?
He might want Levi's attention, and maybe he didn't mind him being close, or being touched by him, but it wasn't like he . . . Wanted . . . Levi . . .
"Fuck," he hissed, burying his face in his hands. "Fuck no."
Jean's palm smacking up against his back was the only thing that brought him to. His glare faltered at the way Jean's eyes were alight and lively, excited about something probably really stupid, he was sure.
"Dude, how do you know that guy?" he asked, and if Eren hadn't known better, he would've thought Jean was sparkling. He was right about thinking it was something stupid. "He's adorable. Come on, you have to introduce me."
"I am not introducing Marco to a creep like you."
"Guess I'll just have to show up at your apartment complex, myself."
Eren groaned. It definitely wasn't his day.
"By the way, what's that about this Levi guy?" Jean asked, pulling Eren's attention back to him. He'd set aside the Marco topic for later, probably, and Eren wasn't looking forward to the incessant questions that would come. "You getting' laid or something?"
"Definitely not," Eren muttered. He inwardly kicked himself when the thought, But I wouldn't mind it, slipped through his defenses. "We're kind of . . . At war, I guess you could say. He was a really big asshole when we first met, so I did something to get back at him, and he did something to get back at me, and it just keeps going. Last night he acted like he 'dumped' me in front of a huge crowd, Marco included. Now everyone's pretty sure we're lovers and we're trying to work through a fight."
He purposely bit back the fact that the entire 'fight' had started because he'd been putting his lame-ass moves on Marco. With the way Jean was suddenly smitten for him, he wasn't chancing touching that. Jean could get violent when he was jealous. He wasn't fickle, though, which was the weirdest part. He'd known Jean for far too long in his life for his liking, and Jean rarely ever had it bad for anyone. Part of him wanted him to just settle down with someone at last, but the other part of him doubted the possibility. In his opinion, Jean was the biggest ass in existence.
He regretted talking about Levi and the public humiliation immediately, because the biggest ass in existence was lit up all over again.
"Dude's a genius! Holy shit, think he'll give me pointers?"
"You don't want pointers from him, Jean. He'll just piss you off, and then you'll get your ass handed to you."
"I could take him, I bet."
"For some reason, I feel like he could take you out in a heartbeat."
Mischief. There was mischief in Jean's eyes. That was the farthest thing from a good sign.
"Don't glorify him so much," Jean sang. "Someone's gonna think you've got the hots for him."
"Shut the fuck up, Jean."
[-X-]
On Saturday, June twenty-ninth, Eren's feet dragged him to the convenience store at noon sharp and, despite his best efforts, would otherwise let him do anything but leave. He stood there stupidly, looking through one of the many large windows that made up the front of the store. Levi was definitely standing behind the counter, the store empty and completely his for the time being. He didn't notice Eren standing outside, though, and instead looked very, very interested in a nonexistent dirt spot on the counter. He was scrubbing is so vigorously that Eren nearly waited for it to spontaneously combust. Cute.
Wait, no, shit—fuck! Stop that, Eren.
He willed himself to step into the store, not really sure if he wanted to talk to Levi or not. He did, he decided, there was no denying it. It didn't matter what about himself or his (ever so important) feelings he'd discovered, he could still piss Levi off and there was something gratifying in that.
Levi gave him a side glance before abruptly ducking behind the counter. Eren could still see a tuft of black hair peeking up from behind the worn wood. He would've laughed if he weren't so confused, but Levi popped up after approximately fifteen seconds of hiding to explain.
"Sorry, kid, thought you were going to through more of my belongings at me," he said, flashing the most plastic smile he could muster. He'd probably be beautiful if he actually smiled. "One hell of an arm, but shitty aim, you know?"
Eren rolled his eyes and neared the counter. "Technically speaking, you did 'give it back' to me. I think I should've kept it. Made you wonder what happened to it."
"Ah, but the book club would've been so disappointed to think that the engagement was off."
"They actually formed a book club?"
"I don't know, but we were both thinking it."
Eren paused, just for a second, to acknowledge the fact and nod in recognition. One thing he'd noticed about Levi was that he tended to give things nicknames and stick to them. He was apparently everything under the rainbow that could possible come off as insulting, even though Levi hardly ever put actual venom behind his words. He'd referred to the group of women that seemed absolutely conjoined to the hip that had been staring at them on Wednesday 'the herd' when they had been passing in the lobby on Friday, and Eren thought that was suitable. Levi also had a funny habit of referring to his employees as his 'squad'. When they did get the chance to sit back and talk civilly, little quirks, like this and the way he'd tap his fingers to a non-existent song, surfaced.
Levi, of course, was immaculate. His house was immaculate, his posture was immaculate, and the ridiculously too-big-for-him truck Eren had found out was his from Marco was immaculate. Levi's hair was always brushed a particular, articulate way. None of his clothes had wrinkles in them unless they were designed to look accordingly (and even then, they looked as though he'd desperately tried to iron them out). At one time, just out of the corner of his eye because his eyes seemed to really like Levi, he'd seen Levi quickly tidy Marco's desk when the man had turned his back. After finding about this habit, he'd avoided letting Levi back into his apartment, knowing just how carried away the man could get in just a short amount of time. It wasn't like Levi really wanted to return to his apartment, because he surely knew how dirty it was.
"Eren," Levi said, voice actually quiet now. He was fishing something out of his back pocket with a pained, begrudging look on his face. The bell on the door rang as a few customers stepped in to signal the beginning of the noon rush. Eren had missed the last one. "I need you to do me a favor. I'm not gonna be able to step three feet away from this damn counter for an hour. For whatever reason, I left my phone and wallet on my coffee table. Can you grab them for me?"
Levi threw his keys to Eren and the brunette caught them with minimal fumbling.
That's weird. Didn't take him as the type to space out over stuff like that.
Eren doing it, himself, was a completely different situation. At least Levi hadn't dropped his wallet in the middle of the lobby (Eren was still a little embarrassed by that). He answered with a quiet, "Yeah," without really thinking twice. And then he thought twice. "I'm not gonna forget about how you told Marco not to give me my wallet."
"I swear, if you try fucking with anything in that wallet, I will slice you open in your sleep and sell your organs on the black market. I know where everything is in that wallet, down to the last number on my driver's license."
"Of course you do."
Levi was taken over by a couple of customers, rendering him unable of forming a retort back fast enough and also shoot back a fast and witty retort. Eren took that as both his excuse and his reason to leave.
Eren made it back to the complex in what he would consider highly recognizable and praise-worthy record time. There wasn't anyone to praise him, though, as an empty lobby greeted him. Levi's apartment was just as quiet, spotless and unnerving in its perfection. He could never quite wrap his head around how Levi could actually want to live this way, but at the same time he'd decided to silently agree with himself when he thought that it was endearing in its own way.
Catching himself transforming traits of Levi's that would otherwise be viewed as negative into positive ones, he harshly bit down onto his lower lip and wandered through the small space, feeling on the wall for a light switch. The apartment he was slowly growing used to came to light. Of course, it was simple—the living room consisted of an L-shaped couch with a wooden and glass coffee table in front of it, a well-loved book shelf, and a small entertainment center with a TV that was probably only used when Levi had company. The living room connected with a kitchen and dining room, which was bigger than Eren's little kitchenette, but only just. He only had the essentials and two chairs at his small table what was only meant for one on a daily basis. There were various candles, although mostly fresh cotton scented, littered all throughout the apartment. They were mostly worn down, wicks almost too small to use. There was a small hallway that lead away from the living room with three doors—one for a bathroom, one for Levi's bedroom, and one for a hall closet. Eren had only seen the bathroom, and that was only once. Levi had given him a good and long talk about leaving the seat up while at other's homes after that.
The phone and wallet sat exactly where Levi promised they'd be, in the center of the coffee table, tossed sort of arbitrarily (by Levi's standards, at least) together. With a sigh, Eren picked them both up and shoved them into his own back pocket before retreating out of the apartment (not after locking it up and turning off the light, because as funny as it would be to see Levi's reaction after at least another four hours of a light being on for no reason, it was also fucking terrifying to think about, discarding all thoughts of the things Levi had done to him).
He stopped halfway out the door, though.
I can't just waste a perfectly good opportunity, can I?
Perhaps leaving the light on or leaving the door unlocked wasn't a good idea, but he could come up with something else. He snuck-not-so-sneakily back into the apartment and let his gaze sweep the room again. Everything was so precise, put in the perfect places. The coffee table was a certain distance away from the couch, the chairs in the dining room pushed up under the table that was almost exactly half a foot away from the wall. His entertainment center seemed to sit right in the center of the wall.
It would be a shame if I moved everything just . . . Four inches to the left.
He doubted it was something Levi would notice immediately, which was the most exciting part. Levi seemed so anal about the placement of things. It would be such a minor change that he'd probably bump into corners and trip over himself, constantly worrying about something seeming a little bit off, but being unable to put his finger on it.
And so he did. He was very careful about it; actually taking time to make sure everything was in just the same order as before . . . Just to the left. Even the few paintings and pictures that hug on the walls were moved, and he would've done Levi's room if he weren't actually mortified by what may come of that. This was enough. This was just a small thing that Levi may not even notice, and he knew he wouldn't die for it. His malice to really get back at Levi had drained out after his revelations on Wednesday and Thursday. Now it was all just good fun, in his case at least.
"Just put them on the break room table for me," Levi murmured after he returned, in between scanning someone's booze and asking them for identification. "Can't move three feet, remember?"
"Right, right."
He trekked back to the break room, maneuvering his way around a tidy stack of boxes that looked fresh and ready to be opened, before stepping into the break room. It, of course, was spotless, like maybe Levi had outright threatened his 'squad' into keeping it that way or losing their genitals if they didn't. There wasn't much to it, even though its spotlessness reminded him of Levi, and Eren did what he was told, placing the goods down onto the break room table and turning to leave.
It was then, of course, that he noticed something terribly amiss.
There was a bulletin board hanging up next to the door with various things written in a handwriting that was too wiry and not quite feminine enough to be Levi's (not like he'd memorized it or anything, of course). There were pictures of all of the employees and their titles—Levi, Manager. Hanji, Assistant Manager. Petra, Cashier. Krista, Cashier. Mike, Cashier. Auruo, Stocker. All of them were smiling, as if they would ever be even slightly excited to live the life of a retail worker, except for Levi. Levi, of course, had his usual bored mask on, but with a glint of something that looked like happiness in his eyes.
His fingers found the pen that was hanging by a ball chain from the bulletin board and he decided he needed to change that.
[-X-]
Levi felt like maybe he had missed something after Eren left. He'd spent far too long in the break room for Levi's comfort, but he still couldn't afford to see if the kid had fucked anything up in there. The rush had been spectacularly terrible, rendering him almost entirely incapable of doing anything but ringing up customers. It was like a blessing disguised as two women when Petra showed up to clock in and Hanji returned from lunch. Their greetings were lost in the chatter coming from the small entity of customers clustering impolitely around the counter.
He eliminated the threat (it sounded so much better than 'taking care of all of the customers and shooing their sorry asses out of the store') before Petra so much as stepped out of the break room.
"Is there a fucking unicorn in there or something?" he grumbled as he finally got the chance to step away from the register for a moment. Petra was standing in the doorway of the break room next to Hanji, and boisterous laughter erupted from the taller woman. Petra looked like she was torn between laughing, probably from Hanji's influence, and being angry about something. "Okay, seriously, what the fuck. What in God's name could be so fucking interesting?"
Petra's gaze flickered between him and whatever the hell it was and Levi's face.
The strawberry blonde immediately covered her mouth to silence her giggles and she stuttered out an apology before fleeing past Levi and over to the register. Levi decided that was definitely not a reaction he liked very much. That was a very, very bad sign. Hanji was still standing there in front of where the bulletin board hung on the wall, holding her stomach as if it helped the pain her obnoxious laughter caused.
Levi sighed and stepped into the break room to see for himself what the fuss was about. "I have a feeling someone's gonna die."
Someone was definitely going to die. That someone was going to be Eren, he could feel it.
All of the pictures of the employees of the shitty little convenience store were untouched, aside from his of course. There was a messily scribbled mustache above his mouth, and a shitty top hat to boot. He would've laughed, because that was possibly the least mature thing he'd ever seen, until he noticed the little comic-like speech bubble next to his head that read, "I love sucking cock".
"I would've preferred that unicorn."
[-X-]
Levi didn't know what possessed him to allow Eren into his apartment after the little speech bubble incident. He was still peeved, because that meant he had to call the General Office, spend thirty minutes waiting on hold, and then explain the situation to his superiors. The pictures of the employees was something ridiculously required by his employer, and he didn't feel like having to explain it to the district manager later on down the road, so just coming clean about it was the next best thing. He'd never heard someone laugh so hard in his life before ordering him a replacement picture.
Alas, there he was, with Eren lounging around on his couch while he struggled with the weirdest sensation that something was off about his apartment. Eren hadn't been gone long enough when he dropped by to get his things for him earlier in the day, so he didn't think the kid had fucked anything up too royally. He was sure he would've noticed by now, anyway.
There was something annoying in the way Eren snickered when he slammed his knee on the coffee table through a bought of trying to figure out what was up. He looked far too fucking smug for normalcy but offered nothing up on what he probably did.
Eren had gone off on his merry little way after thoroughly defacing him in the break room to buy a movie that had been recently released. Even though it looked cheesy and the previews were a bit of overkill, Levi had been meaning to see it, maybe with Hanji because that was the kind of shit she loved. He said as much. He realized, of course, that he should not have because now they were sitting in his living room, waiting for the brunette woman to make her appearance. If it had been entirely up to him, which it wasn't, Hanji wouldn't have been invited and Eren would be at least fifty feet away from him and he would be snuggled up in a throw blanket, reading. Eren had snagged his phone when he hadn't been looking and invited her himself though.
He was slipping up, he decided. Levi was never this careless. He wasn't having a particularly bad day, as he never really had days like Eren apparently did. After leaving his things on his coffee table that morning, and then just leaving his phone out for Eren to reach, he was sure he was losing his sense of self-awareness.
(Truth be told, although it wouldn't be told to anyone, he was blaming both of these instances on Eren inadvertently effecting him. In the morning, he'd heard Eren talking outside of his apartment, probably to another resident. It was embarrassing and stupid as hell, but he'd been distracted by the brunette's voice, and played it off as walking out of his apartment on his way to work to tell him to shut the fuck up so early in the morning. The second time, he'd only been thinking about ways to get back at Eren, but it was still Eren that had taken over his thoughts.)
The doorbell rang and Eren reacted before he could.
The young man hurried over to the door in a mess of stupid, lanky limbs and pulled the door open. Levi covered his eyes to miss the visual of Hanji pulling him into a crushing bear hug and haul him off of the floor.
"You're Eren, right?!" she asked excitedly, still hugging him to herself. He gasped and choked out something inaudible, and she murmured an apology and unenthusiastically put him back down. "It's so nice to meet you! I'm Hanji!"
They carried on some sort of stupid moron-banter while Levi set up the movie to save time. Hanji broke his last DVD player, and he wasn't risking a potentially technologically-inept Eren touching it. By the time he'd finished and sat back down at the couch, they were talking about him.
"So you're the one who's got our beloved, sweet little Levi all flustered," she cooed, playing with Eren's hair and poking his cheeks. It was some sort of weird affectionate motherly kind of action, he assumed. "He talks about you a lot. You're definitely as cute as he says—"
"Oi, is your ass jealous of all of the shit coming out of your mouth?" Levi cut in. He glared poison at Hanji that he hoped would kill her by osmosis. "Leave him be, Hanji. Movie's starting."
Hanji laughed and sat down and Levi was almost graced with silence.
"You totally want me," Eren practically sang, giving his hips a little extra bounce as he made his way over to join the two of them on the couch. Levi didn't miss the redness in his face or the way he sort of stumbled he realized Levi was actually watching. "Try keeping your hands to yourself."
"Don't flatter yourself."
The movie went relatively well, at least for the standards Levi could uphold with Eren and Hanji in the same room. They laughed obnoxiously and pointed out when things were impossible just like every other person that Levi refused to watch movies with. At one time, Hanji had gotten into some scientific details, and that's when he decided to throw pillows at them and tell them to shut the fuck up. That only lasted for about thirty minutes, but he'd decided to take what he could get. By the time the credits rolled, Levi considered that it had been far too quiet for far too long and snuck a glance over to the two brunettes hogging up at least eighty percent of his couch.
Eren was curled into a little ball on the cushion next to him, fast asleep, while Hanji leaned back, sprawled across the L, arms outstretched to the air. She shot a grin at Levi, who scowled.
I'm giving him thirty minutes before I push him off of my fucking couch or kill him.
"Just let him sleep," Hanji hummed as she stood up and stretched. "But I should probably be heading back to my place. It's late as hell and not all of us are off tomorrow."
She pressed a little kiss to his forehead, despite his best efforts of batting her away and protesting. She grabbed his arm and pulled him with her to the door, as if she were forcing him to see her out. She turned to him, though, when they were far enough from Eren to know they wouldn't wake him up.
"Be nice to the kid. I think he really likes you." She stepped out of the door and shot Levi a little smile before pulling the door shut with her as she left.
(Levi deemed it fine to let Eren sleep after that little bit. His sleeping face was too peaceful, lacking his usual flame and energy, to wake him up. He draped his throw blanket over the boy and slipped back into the spot he'd been occupying for the movie, drifting into his book. The peacefulness he felt was almost worth waking up at seven in the morning to the smell of burning eggs and Eren absent from his spot next to him. He doubted Eren would ever forget the way he practically screamed, "You are the result of billions of years of successful evolution, so why the fuck can't you act like it?!" at the sight of flaming eggs and a charred spot on the cabinet near his stove before frantically tearing the pan out of Eren's grasp and throwing it into the sink.)
[-X-]
Sunday was spent, weirdly enough, with Eren. Levi tried to teach Eren how to properly use kitchen utensils, as his inability was obvious, but got fed up with it so quickly that he scrapped that idea and just made Eren watch him instead. They didn't do anything particularly enjoyable, and Eren mostly just took advantage of the fact that Levi had a bigger TV than him while Levi did his own thing (which included cleaning, of course, and reading).
Monday brought their odd companionship to a screeching halt.
Levi came home a little over an hour earlier than usual. He was greeted with an unfamiliar face in the lobby, an older woman, wandering around and looking absolutely lost and frustrated. She turned and caught Levi's eye, before hurrying over to him without a word.
She, of course, was a bit taller than him. The signs of age were apparent on her face, or maybe a rough time raising children that stressed her out to no end, but neither options were disregarded when he saw the color of her eyes, her hair, the shape of her nose—she looked too much like Eren to be anything but his mother, he decided. She'd aged rather gracefully, her hair still full of the vibrant brown that was just like Eren's hair, pulled into a quick side-ponytail over her shoulder. He almost stopped to offer a prayer for her, for surviving through Eren's adolescence, but she was talking and he had to stumble to catch up to her words.
"Could you help me?" she asked, smiling a little apologetically. She had Eren's smile, or perhaps Eren had her smile. "My name's Carla, I'm looking for my son, Eren. He told me to visit him today around this time and he'd be out here waiting, and I wrote down his apartment number, but I left it at home. Do you know where he lives?"
Definitely Eren's mother. You poor thing.
"I know him all too well," Levi said absently, nodding and waving her along with him as he headed for the stairs. "Has he said anything about the complex, or how he likes living here?"
"He talks about it all of the time," she said softly, gratefully following along behind him. "I think he loves living here. Said he's been having a little bit of trouble with a certain resident, but he—"
Levi's chuckle brought her sentence to a premature end and she peered at him curiously as they reached the top of the stairs. He turned to face her, and gave a little bow. "I do believe that would be me," he said, taking the few steps it took to make it to Eren's door. He turned the knob and pushed the door open, proving that Eren hardly ever locked his door. "If you've heard of me I'm sure I can tell you that I'm 'the fiancé'."
He didn't expect the way her eyes widened, or the way she stared at him incredulously without words. Wait, fuck—
"Fiancé," she said softly, and a sad little smile graced her lips. "I see. I've known he's been interested in someone, just from the way he talks, in the last few weeks, but . . . A fiancé. You know, I've known about him and what kind of people he's attracted to since he was young, but he would never talk to me about it. Twenty-one and hiding things like this from me?" She bit down on her lip, and Levi did the same. His eyes were probably wide, something he lost control of the moment Carla started to speak. This wasn't what he'd meant. He thought Eren had talked to her about it. It was a joke.
"I, uh, ma'am—"
"Don't worry," she said softly, effectively cutting him off with a pat to his shoulder. She stepped into Eren's apartment and turned around, hand gently grasping the door as she smiled at Levi. "I'll talk to him. I just need to be alone with him. I can wait. Thank you so much."
She shut the door before he could protest. There was something in her eyes, a little glimpse that he had caught before the door shut. It was a fire, a fire too similar to Eren's, too unreadable. He returned to his apartment with that fire in his mind, in the back of his mind where he kept it as he sat down on his couch in the living room that still felt too off.