A/N: I really have to apologise just, but I can't keep to my promise of updating fast before my hiatus. Things got busier when I didn't expect it so I'm really juggling things now. I hate to break my promise but I'll be going on a hiatus with occasional updates whenever I can. I'm really really sorry for this! TOT

On the other hand, thanks a lot for staying with the story! I understand that the slow updates are kind of irksome so I'm really happy if you guys are fine with waiting patiently. As a thank you, I wrote a longer chapter this time! Without further ado, here's chapter 5!

Disclaimer: SnK is not mine.

CHAPTER 5:

Eren stared at the monstrosity in front of him. The bright pink of the words 'I loathe you, Ravioli' were imprinted in his mind, each image more pink and hideous than the previous. The shocking pink rendered him speechless, and all he could do was stand and stare at the gaudiness of the display.

H-How terrible! Why would anyone ruin my perfect arrangement?!As much as he thought and pondered, he simply had no idea why.

He woke up from his shock when Rivaille-san started moving.

Brandishing a broom from seemingly nowhere, Rivaille began sweeping the rose petals up. Eren's first thought was: Wait, Rivaille-san! Those flowers were expensive! but he stopped himself from voicing them out upon seeing the cleaner's face.

Rivaille-san looked unamused (as usual), but this time, there was a tinge of grumpiness and something Eren couldn't place on his face. He broke his stare and went forth to the sweeping man, venturing a timid "Rivaille-san?"

There was no reply for a while. Rivaille-san kept his eyes on the floor as he swept, the words he spoke so quiet Eren almost missed them: "Help me clean them up, brat."

Eren nodded immediately and got to dusting the petals off the table. With each swipe of the table, Eren felt his heart break further. It was as if each petal represented his heartbroken tears of sadness that fell as he swept his hard work away. All my hard work... My planning... All for nothing! Eren felt really indignant about it all.

"Rivaille-san..." he began, but his speech was interrupted by the older man.

"If I ever find out the name of the fool who did this, the person better be prepared," Rivaille-san muttered. "How filthy; dirtying the library just like this. The irresponsibility of kids these days is really alarming."

His hands gripped the broom tightly, almost breaking the handle as he channelled his anger into sweeping. Eren shuddered as he watched a crack form along the broom from iron grip of the older man.

"Y-Yeah! How terrible of that person! Dirtying Rivaille-san's spot just like that! Rivaille-san, you must not let that person off! What a bad person that person is! It's really horrible of him! He's horrible! He's evil! H-He's... Errr..." Sadly, his limited vocabulary soon had him stuttering over his tirade. "...very very bad!" He glanced in embarrassment at Rivaille, and was surprised to see that a lighter expression had replaced his annoyed one. Smiling to himself, he continued swiping the table, his heartbreak over the roses forgotten.

Rivaille-san spoke up little while after the silence that had ensued:

"Oi, brat."

The words were enough to make Eren look up immediately. Rivaille-san was hardly the kind to start conversations, so this was a pleasant surprise to him.

He replied with an excited "Yes?" and looked expectantly at the older man.

Rivaille's voice was quiet as he fixed his eyes on the floor. Eren nearly missed how the cleaner's grip tightened further as he stopped sweeping.

"Am I that detestable?"

Rivaille-san was clearly more affected by the message than he showed. Eren watched as the other man's eyebrows furrowed deeper and something in his heart clenched at older man's slightly upset tone. He felt really guilty; the roses were his idea after all, and hence the screw-up was also his fault.

Moving forward to clasp Rivaille's hands (causing their owner to look up at him in concealed surprise), Eren smiled at the shorter man. "Rivaille-san's not detestable at all! In this short span of time I've known you, you've worked so hard making the school clean for us- how can anyone hate you for that?! I think... The message... was just a mistake! The person probably arranged it wrongly or something! I'm sure he appreciates you a lot!"

The sincerity in his words seemed to cheer Rivaille up as his expression brightened further. Looking amused, he stared at Eren, "What do you think the original message was then?"

The unexpected question had Eren jerking in response. This was it! This was an opportunity for him to correct his mistake! Trembling in excitement, he grabbed the other's hands harder, and brought his eyes to Rivaille-san's very own.

His palms sweating like a pig, he surveyed Rivaille-san's face and noted his expectant face filled with a hint of disgust at the sweat pouring over his hands. Eren paid no attention to the latter expression- he'll wash Rivaille-san's hands for him later if he wanted him to.

"I-I..." He couldn't stop himself from stuttering nervously as he stared at the love of his life. Rivaille-san's grumpy-but-not-actually-grumpy expression was really adorable, and he felt his nervousness soar to new heights. His sweat seemed to flow profusely like a river now.

"I... I..." Rivaille-san nodded to encourage him, although his hands were shifting slightly as if trying to escape the flowing river. "I..." Eren struggled to get the words out of his mouth, but it was as if something was lodged in his throat, and all he could was croak and stutter pathetically.

This continued on for quite a while, with Rivaille waiting patiently for an answer, and Eren struggling to get his words out but after ten excruciating minutes, the cleaner was clearly at the limit of his patience:

"Spit it out."

He shrugged off Eren's damp hands and wiped his own with a silk handkerchief, cringing in horror at the voluminous amount of sweat drenching the cloth. The brat was clearly a sweat-producing machine.

In the meantime, Eren managed to compose himself. He squeezed his eyes shut, his knees quaking a little, and mustered up his courage to yell:

"Rivaille-san! I love you!"

The loud yell echoed throughout the quiet library, resulting in a few loud 'SHH's of anger from the other students in the library.

Eren, upon remembering their location, clasped his hand over his mouth in horror, but his embarrassment wasn't enough to distract him from his elation.

I did it! I managed to confess! Please have a favourable reaction, Rivaille-san!

Awkward silence ensued as the two of them remained in their positions. This was definitely not what he expected. Wasn't Rivaille-san supposed to jump into his arms out of joy or something? He quickly closed his outstretched hands. Shit... What do I do now?

The silence was making Eren uncomfortable, so he began a staring contest with the carpet.

Oooh, nice red... He thought idly as he kept up his staring. A moment passed before he was unable to take the silence, and he snuck a look at the other man. What he saw made him really concerned.

Rivaille-san was still frozen in his position with his arms crossed, looking exactly like how he did moments ago, only with the exception of his eyebrows which were more furrowed than ever. Those brows may remain stuck in that position one day, Eren thought as he moved forward to the older man. He suppressed his urge to snicker- it was no time to laugh, concern was the necessary emotion at the moment.

"R-Rivaille-san?" Eren asked softly, but was greeted with no response. He waved his arms in front of the statue that was Rivaille, trying to elicit a reaction from the other, but to no avail. He felt his panic set in slowly, as he tried all sorts of attention-grabbing movements to try to unfreeze the frozen cleaner.

"Rivaille-san? Rivaille-san?!" In his desperate movements, he knocked over a bottle of Windex in the table, and sent the bottle toppling onto the floor. Unsurprisingly, that had Rivaille snapping out of his crystallised form and leaping to save the falling bottle. With a few quick movements, the bottle was in Rivaille's grasp.

Cradling the bottle as if it was his newborn baby, the cleaner heaved a huge sigh of relief.

"Rivaille-san!" Eren called out in relief. "Are you okay?" He gave the older man an once-over to assess his condition. Yup, he looks okay. Eren relaxed upon affirming this.

Setting his precious baby on the table, Rivaille turned to face the brat he had recently regarded as his assistant cleaner. The boy was delusional to think that someone was interested in an old cleaner like him. But his honest and firm belief in his suggestion was sort of endearing, so he decided to humour his protégé.

"So you think the message was a declaration of love? I find that very hard to believe." He questioned, making his disbelief as clear as the Windex in his bottle.

Eren's response was immediate: "Yes!" He exclaimed, "That person must have been amazed by your skills with cleaning, and hence felt a pressing need to declare his love for you!"

Rivaille quirked an eyebrow at the boy's use of 'his' but did not press further. It was none of his business what the boy's sexual preference was after all.

Eren took the silence as a sign to go on:

"Rivaille-san's cleaning skill is superb, making the library shine so much and all, plus your strict care for your cleaning supplies tells me how meticulous and caring you are. And I think you are really really cute when you scrunch your brows and..."

If Eren wasn't ashamed of his blatant flattering, he had Rivaille feeling embarrassed for him. The boy uttered some of the mushiest lines he had ever heard! It was almost as if he was unconsciously confessing to him. He resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands as Eren chatter on. The brat seemed to like to chatter a lot.

He decided to put a stop to the nonsense sprouting out of the younger boy's mouth. Jaeger clearly did not know what he was talking about.

"Jaeger, you can stop now. Thanks for the... compliments."

Surprisingly, he did not listen for once:

"I'm serious, Rivaille-san. I really really like you. The roses were meant as a confession but I really have no idea why it ended up like that. I-"

His speech was cut off yet again by the other man:

"... Are you saying you are the one who created this mess?"

Rivaille's voice held a tone of amusement, and yet was slightly threatening. Eren could not tell if this meant good or bad news. He gulped as he pondered his next words."Er..." He trailed off.

He felt a sense of deja vu as they entered another round of awkward staring, with most of the awkwardness being felt by Eren while the staring was done by Rivaille. "Er..." He started, only to stop again. He really needed to work on his eloquence one day. Hanging his head low, he replied "Yes... I did it Rivaille-san, I'm really sorry... I meant to clean it up! But I'm really serious about it. Liking you, I mean." Way to go Eren, he applauded his own bravery at speaking up.

Rivaille didn't know whether to laugh or cry, though either way, he was sure his expression would be the same and he wasn't the type to laugh or cry anyway. Thus, he continued stoning.

The poor boy was probably at that stage where one was confused about their sexuality. Rivaille himself had not experienced much attraction to others in his younger years, but he had heard and read about the topic and was rather confident of his knowledge in that area.

What could he do for this poor, confused soul? He felt a sense of obligation to help his fellow cleaner as much as he could. He stared long and hard at Eren, thinking deeply of good solutions to help him.

The boy must be so deprived of girls to the point of him imagining that he had feelings for another guy. Rivaille had not paid much attention to the opposite gender during his years in the school, but from what he had observed, most of the females weren't that bad. Perhaps it was just Jaeger's ill-luck, but Rivaille couldn't fathom why; the brunette wasn't a looker but he certainly had a special... charm or something that made people pay attention to him.

If deprivation was Jaeger's problem then resolving this wasn't a problem at all. He recalled what Petra, his assistant head cleaner, had told him a few hours before. An idea formulating on his mind, Rivaille knew what he had to do.

"It's okay." He reached out to place a hand on the poor boy's shoulder, wanting to comfort him but the possibility of contacting germs soon had him retracting it. He opted for a pitying gaze instead. This however, made Eren more confused:

"Huh?" What's okay? My confession? Does that mean that he's accepting me? R-Rivaille-san!

Rivaille watched the look of relief and elation passing Eren's face. Yes, he was definitely doing the right thing for the boy- just look at his sheer joy! He sincerely wished that Jaeger would get better with the help of his plan.

He nodded:

"I'll take you to a special place tomorrow. It'll be good."