"You don't get it."

"Which part? The fact that you so want to tap that ass or the part he looks as if he's begging for you to?"

"Hanji, shut up."

Levi scowled as hard as he could manage, which was a lot, stressing his malcontent with the topic at hand and refusal to give in to the suggestions thrown around; however, Hanji had never been one to cave in to his curmudgeon self.

"I just don't get it. Do you think hitting on him will jeopardise work or something? 'Cause I'm 100% sure you'll continue to give him hell even if he's literally kissing your ass at night."

"Fuck you Hanji."

"No, fuck you li'l prick. Fuck you and I mean literally because you really, really need it. Not by me preferably, yuck. But seriously, how long has it been since you got laid?"

Way to pump up my self-esteem about it… Shit. How long has it been indeed? I think… a year? I haven't seen anyone but my own right hand in a year. Great. Such perfect relationship material l am.

"And that's why he shouldn't be interested in me."

"Pardon, what? If anything, I think it fits well: let him screw your dry spell away."

"He's twenty-four."

"And that explains… what exactly?"

"He's just starting out and I'm nearing end. He is excitable and hopeful while I'm tired and frustrated. I don't do dating. I don't do people. What the heck would he want from me?!"

"I can think of a few things he clearly does, seeing how he glances at your cute little butt so often."

"It's just… left-over shit okay? I was the one who dumped him so he probably—"

"Wants to get back at you? I really don't think so but if that's the case, I don't care how adorable he is, I'll switch gears you know?"

"Calm your tits before you go psycho… I didn't mean it like that. We ended it on good terms and it was mutual. I meant he might be stuck over the idea of me? He was too young and he thought I was some awesome shit, so..."

"You are some awesome shit."

"Yeah, so awesome that I got kicked out of a teaching position after a single semester."

"We both know it wasn't working out anyway. Academia was never good for you."

"For sure and I realised that when? Only after a decade of hard work and pulling my hair out. That's how fucking 'awesome' I am."

"Not everyone realises their passions early on... Most don't actually."

"Eren did. Enthusiastic brat always wanted to be in publishing. He was eighteen and wrote shitty fan fiction but he knew what he wanted to do with his life."

"Okay so he did, whatever. He was amongst the lucky 1%. That's all. You were good at what you did, Levi… Still are, I mean come on, you yourself read the reviews of your books. You were just not good at the teaching part. Or being an academic part in general. Or being in academia at all. Or the Princeton part in specific, I mean, it was probably the worst choice possible."

"Don't even remind me Princeton ever again, or I'll sew your mouth shut forever… Those intellectually constipated arrogant shitheads."

Hanji massaged his tense shoulders gently as he rested his elbows on his knees, sitting on the sofa cross-legged, his form slouched and hands framing both sides of his head, which felt like imploding on itself from fatigue.

"And you owned those shitheads, Levi. You totally flipped them off. You're still a genius in your field and you finally found a job that you actually enjoy and feel comfortable doing too!"

"At thirty."

"Ugh Levi, come on… Age doesn't matter here! You could have been sixty and it wouldn't matter! But you're not. Hell, you're not even thirty yet. It's still a couple of weeks away."

"It doesn't change the fact that I'm a bigass fuck-up."

"Seriously, you bastard, if you're a fuck-up I don't know what does that say about the rest of us?"

"Says the person who has more than a dozen literary awards…"

Hanji roared with laughter and hugged their smaller friend from behind, snaking their arms around the thin waist and shook the body in their hold lovingly, tightly, while Levi struggled half-heartedly and groaned.

"My dear super-grump, I still don't see why you should not pursue Eren?"

"Because it didn't work when he was a naïve freshman, it will definitely not work when he is a full-fledged sardonic adult."

Hanji didn't respond to it, as if aware that there was more he wanted to say – the words, he wasn't sure how to choose or put them. It was awkward and painful, knowing a person so intimately once in the past but having a frigid distance in the present. Were they strangers now? But how could they be, when Levi still so vividly remembered the taste of Eren's skin and lips? How do you package such tender knowledge such that you can maintain indifference, as if it never existed? It had been easy to come to learn Eren, to love him, but how to unlearn now?

It didn't help that the years had added more to the charm of the young man who seemed so much more mature yet at the same time as youthful as ever. After mere seconds that felt like dreadful hours to Levi, his lips decided to move on their own and leak what was cooking in the recesses of his mind, his hands moving to his face in tandem, heels of his palms rubbing his eyes in a hopeless attempt to scrub away the frustration and weariness:

"He deserves better. And even if he does not realise it fully yet, he will eventually and want someone better and closer to his age. There is no point to this and I'm beyond easy lays. I'm fucking too old for that shit."

"Let me repeat this again so that it can penetrate your thick skull: you're not even thirty yet."

"I will be. In less than a month. Screw this. I'll rather be celibate rest of my life than throw myself for a one-night stand with my hot young subordinate and fuck our peace at the office forever. Work comes first at this point, both for me and him."

He uncovered his face and reclined on his back, exerting quite a bit of power and taking Hanji with him, crushing their body between the backside of the sofa and his own weight, satisfied with their whining as they squeezed themselves out of the smothering position. Hanji frowned, which always looked strange on them and ruffled Levi a bit; the gesture that was so natural on him looked so alien on them.

"You don't know if there's no point to it! It doesn't have to be an easy lay. You always liked him, I mean, I know you said you two weren't working out then… And I never met him then so I had no idea but I'm thinking it was just, bad timing you know? He really seems like a good kid."

"Bad timing? He was clearing the levels I had already passed and did want to look back to. On the other hand, he did not have a fucking clue what kind of crap I was going through. I was vomiting from nerves of whether or not I was screwing my thesis and just what the fuck was I doing with my life in general… and he spent nights playing CoD or cramming for an exam the night before because the douchebag didn't study in advance and went to all kinds of protests instead."

"But it's not like that now, is it?"

"It is similar enough. We are still years apart. Look… I'm not gonna make a move on him. Run off your shoddy mouth as much as you like. I'm not tapping that ass."

"You know you want to."

"Well wanting is different than willing and I will not."

Hanji sprawled on the other side of the sofa tiredly and shook their head,

"Fine, stubborn little shit. I still think he'd be good for you and that you're really overthinking this. You might be an asshole but deep down you are a Care Bear and I know it and I'm sure Eren does too because he looks at you like that."

"Like what?"

"With respect and affection."

"Yeah, sure; he looks at me with horror and woe."

"Well, that too…" Hanji chuckled, poking Levi's side with their finger, which drew a snort from Levi as well and he thought, somewhere in the back of his mind that it wouldn't be so bad if Eren indeed looked at him with respect and care too in addition to horror and woe… He'd… like that. Kinda. Okay, shit, that would be great but no way of it being real, beyond Hanji's delusions.