Levi was having a day, and that was the only word that he would use to describe what he'd gone through. The day had already started off bad, with him rolling out of bed at five thirty AM, dragging the full-body mirror out of the back of his closet, and seeing that the bruises left by his Mother's hands and beer bottle had gone from the tender pink they'd been when he'd first received them to an almost night sky level of dark blue, mixed with mottled shades of purple. Where his Mother had grabbed his wrists, and held on tight, there were visible hand marks, and he nearly shattered the mirror when he kicked it out of frustration. Of all the places that they had to be, they were at his wrists. How the fuck was he going to explain that? He might've been able to pass it by the principal and teachers, but his friends weren't as dense as a brick, and would know immediately what had happened.

Long sleeves it is, then. He thought, hurriedly tugging on a white shirt that wasn't stained with blood and a pair of hand-me-down jeans from his father, which hung off his waist and bunched up at his ankles awkwardly. Half-heartedly, he rolled the cuffs, hoping they wouldn't come undone, and bolted down the stairs, pouring out a glass of water and placing two painkillers on the counter. Just as he went to grab a poptart from the box on top of the fridge, he heard his Mother's bedroom door open, and his eyes widened, breath escaping his lungs.

Fuck breakfast, I need to get out of here. He thought, his feet moving before he realized they were. Within thirty seconds, his backpack was over his shoulder, and he was out the door, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds, making sure she hadn't followed him out. Once he was about a mile away, he slowed to a walk. After a minute of deliberation, he rerouted his course to Irwin's house, making it there by about six AM. A slightly sluggish Irwin greeted him, still trying to blink the sleep from his eyes.

Once welcomed into the house, Levi groaned, dropping his bag off near the door.

"Sorry about intruding again...Mom just-"

"Another bad night?" Irwin guessed, shuffling into the kitchen to pour them both cups of coffee.

"Yeah. Some asshats bought her extra drinks on Friday and tried to get into her pants, which sent her home raging like a goddamn bull. You can fill in the blanks as to what happened next," he said.

Gratefully, he took the mug from Irwin, fingertips grasping the top tightly as he breathed the scent in deeply. He took a large gulp, despite the tingling feeling it left behind as it burnt his tongue. As he licked at the corner of his lips, he could hear Irwin's faint chuckle.

"Never gonna learn how to hold a mug properly, eh?"

"Choke on a dick," he eloquently replied, only rolling his eyes at the chuckle the comment received.

Despite Levi's insisting that he didn't have to, Irwin tossed him a packet of brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts. After taking a large bite from one, his nose wrinkled.

"Tastes like shit," he muttered.

"Well, it's the closest we can have to a breakfast," the blonde said, eyes glancing down at the pants Levi was wearing, and rolling his eyes.

"Come on."

"What?"

Irwin tugged istently on his arm.

"You need to change pants. You wear those hand-me-downs to school, you're going to bring Bradley's gang onto you, and they'll make your bruises even worse."

Levi winced, knowing the truth in his words, but not wanting to admit it.

"I'll fight them off..."

"...and then start something with the principal, and call your Mom up to the school. You know what happened last time she was called up to the school. Come on."

Irwin tugged again.

Levi winced, aiming a harsh slap at Irwin's arm. The blond let go, watching Levi almost cradle his arm. He could even see the wires connecting in Irwin's head, figuring out what had happened.

"Leave it," he snarled, not wanting to return to that topic of conversation.

If only to keep Irwin's mouth shut, he pulled himself to his feet, going up into Irwin's room. The moment he walked in, a pair of his jeans he'd left over at his place on accident was chucked at his face, and he narrowly avoided them hitting him. Once the pants were changed, Irwin threw the old ones in the trash, saying that he and Levi were going to go out some time that weekend to buy him some actual clothes. The teenager only snorted, shaking his head.

Like you'll follow up with it...he thought bitterly.

A half-hour later, they were meeting up with Hanji, Auruo, Petra, Gunter and Erd up at the corner, all of the teenagers coming from separate areas. Hanji, having been waiting at the corner for everyone, noticed Levi walking up with Irwin, and looked at him with a mixture of sadness and pity. To this, Levi flicked her on the nose.

"Don't fucking pity me, four eyes," he said, glaring at her.

She only sighed, a smile plastering itself onto her face.

"That reminds me! We got to dissect rats yesterday!"

Levi visibly cringed.

"Oh, so they've upgraded from slimy-ass frogs to shit-stained rats?" he muttered.

Hanji stuck her tongue out at him, holding her books close to her chest. "They were cleaned! Why do you always hate when I talk about this kind of stuff?"

"Because it's filthy as shit. If you enjoy dicking around with some muddy animals, go ahead, be my guest, but please don't go through every disgusting detail."

Hanji was about to reply, but Petra thankfully arrived, which effectively shut the brunette up. She went to talking with the girl and left Levi alone for the rest of their time waiting. About five minutes after everyone had shown up, the bus had pulled up, and the group took their usual seats in the very far back, Levi getting the single seat, closest to the emergency exit. He watched dully as everyone was picked up, noting the people who didn't board at certain stops, and knew who to anticipate in class. As usual, he had a few kids trying to throw shit at him, ranging from pencils to books. Each time, he caught it, and lobbed it back at them, sometimes accidentally hitting Hanji's head instead.

Once the bus pulled off, the group was forced to split up for their respective classes. In these classes, he was called out by god-knows how many teachers for wearing a hoodie, written up seven times for it, and was assigned an extra paper on the Civil War because of his smart mouth. When he trudged into the cafeteria for lunch, he almost didn't give a shit that he hadn't been able to grab his lunch or any money in his haste to get out of the house. Of course, Irwin and a couple others from the group had pooled what money they'd had left over to get him something to eat, despite his constant insistence that he didn't need anything.

"Levi, your eating habits are worrying us," Petra said, taking another bite from her tuna salad sandwich.

"You've lost ten pounds within the past week," Hanji noted, glancing down at the note she'd written on her arm, before casting her gaze back up to Levi.

Levi only brushed off their concern.

"It's nothing, really. My Mom just hasn't been leaving money clipped to the fridge to buy dinner and lunch food."

While the group knew about Levi's Mother's issues with alcohol, the effect of that, and their financial situation, there wasn't much they could do. They'd suggested reporting it to their parents or authority before, but Levi had threatened to break off all ties with them if they even so much as breathed a word of it. And so, they'd keep their mouths shut. But it got hard, some days.

Before long, the bell was ringing, and they had to move on to their next classes. Due to the conversation at lunch, Levi was in a rather sour mood when he went to History. After having to listen to Ms. Mcnair's passive-aggressive insults for an hour, he nearly sprinted to Math, glad to finally go to a class that he enjoyed. His mood almost immediately lightened upon stepping through the door. He took his usual seat at the front corner, nearest to the door, and waited for the rest of the class to flood through the doors behind him. Methodically, he went through the motions of solving each problem put up on the board, happy that he had the chance to throw himself into something that required no emotion, no complicated thoughts, no crazy friends, abusive mothers or deadbeat fathers...Just going through the motions. Having finished the assignment first out of the class, he got a start in on the homework sheet as well.

Not long after, the school day drew to a close, and each kid flooded out the doors, breaking off to their cars, or friends cars as they passed through the door. Levi, however, walked over to one of the trees in front of the school, keeping an eye out for the messy brown hair, indicating that Eren had gotten out of class. When he spotted him, walking with Mikasa, as usual, he quickly jogged down to catch up with them.

They didn't seem phased by his presence, only smiled and nodded to him.

"Still on for tutoring?" Mikasa asked, eyebrow slightly raising.

Levi only nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets.

The walk to Eren's home was awkward, and the conversation mostly one-sided, seeing as the conversation seemed to be mainly between the siblings. About half way there, Levi decided that he wouldn't really need to hear anything, and pulled out his MP3, jamming the buds into his ears as "Firely" by Breaking Benjamin blared through them. Eventually, he found himself humming along, enjoying the almost painful volume that the song was being played at. It was comforting and familiar, allowing him to just get immersed in the music and block everything out. It was a well needed distraction, especially after the day he'd had.

After the song had ended, he felt Mikasa poking at his shoulder. Raising an eyebrow, he tugged an ear bud out.

"Eren said that he loves the group you're listening to."

"Oh, Breaking Benjamin?"

She nodded.

Levi glanced over at Eren, eyebrows raised in a sort of surprise.

"Didn't take you to be the type to listen to 'em. Interesting..." he said. Before Eren could reply, he shoved the ear bud back in, signaling that he was closing himself off the conversation again.

The rest of the walk was silent.

–-

Levi sighed, his head making a solid thud as it connected with the wooden table. In front of him sat all of the math papers they'd managed to dig from his bag, and the first report card for the year. And, after reading said papers, Levi felt himself slowly beginning to dread these lessons.

Eren sat in the seat to the left of him, flinching rather visibly when the sound rang through the room. Mikasa had the resist the urge to snicker from her spot at his right.

"Please tell me that this is a joke, and that those grades aren't really as bad as they are."

This time, Mikasa did snicker.

"I'm afraid that we aren't lying, Levi," she replied, seeming to enjoy the boy's frustration.

After another deep breath out of his nose, he lifted his head, sifting through the papers that had been laid in front of him.

This is going to be a challenge...He thought solemnly, teeth gnawing at the inside of his mouth.

It was a long five minutes before he spoke again.

"You're in Algebra 1, right? Taught by Mr. Abram?"

A nod from Eren.

"Asshat," he muttered under his breath.

Levi knew the teacher all too well, having gotten into a couple spats with him before, to the point that Levi had been removed from his class, despite the school's policy on not moving kids past three weeks into the year. When it came to his teaching methods, they were flat and boring, often relying on the students picking up what he's saying immediately, as well as heavily focusing on book work. Obviously, this method didn't work with Eren.

"Alright Jaeger, we're going to go back to the beginning of the book, and make sure you understand basics. Abram's a shithead and seems to only care about his paycheck and star students, so it's not surprising you're failing. Flip to page 15."

Three and a half hours later, Eren probably had a lump on the back of his head from how many times Levi had smacked him, Mikasa had snorted water out of her nose twice, Levi was completely lost on how all of the silent arguments between Eren and Mikasa, and they had somehow managed to make some progress on where Eren was in math.

"Okay, so you have the basics down and, considering this, you should be able to understand what he's teaching you right now. That's one of the advantages of Mr. Abram's teaching style. It relies heavily on what's in the book, and he grades mostly on how you got the answer, then the actual answer itself. He's been known to mark problems correct if the process was right, but the basic math, like the multiplication and division, was wrong."

Eren nodded, leaning over Levi's shoulder to look at the work that Levi was correcting and checking over. He seemed to be almost fascinated by how Levi's fingers moved while writing notes in, pupils dilated and lips slightly parted.

"Do you mind? You can go jerk off about my hands later, but right now, we're focusing on the math. Unless that gets you off too. In which case, I think you need to see someone."

Eren went bright red, pulling suddenly away and trying to keep his eyes fixed on the table. Mikasa snorted, rolling her eyes.

The conversation stayed relatively focused on math after that, once they could get Eren to actually pull his eyes up from the wood. Trying to get Eren to understand what was going on, however, was harder than shoving a cabbage through a keyhole. Just when he appeared to be understanding the material, he'd do one thing that would prove that he was just bullshitting his way through it.

"How fucking long have you bullshitted your way through math, Jaeger? Really, you're damn near professional at it by now."

All he received in reply was a shrug from the teen, which was enough to make him want to choke the boy.

"You know what, fuck it. This was more progress than I'd expected we'd make, and hopefully I managed to drill some of the information into your dense skull. Otherwise, all the work we got done today was useless, and it'll make the next lesson about twenty times more painful."

Levi slammed the math textbook closed, going to shove it into his bag, reluctant to be leaving so soon. But, he knew full well that he couldn't hang around much longer, seeing as his sign language lessons hadn't been scheduled to start yet.

"Just...Go over the worksheets again, and pay attention to the notes I wrote in. They'll save your brain a ton of work. Also, don't try pulling some of the short cuts that I use. Until you understand the material, just...don't. You'll make things infinitely harder for me and you. Now, if you excuse me, I have shit to do."

Without so much as a goodbye, Levi left, dread pooling in his stomach and weighing him down and making his feet feel like lead.

He really wished they'd offered to let him stay for a little while longer.

(Not like he'd actually have accepted their offer.)

i am sooooo sorry this chapter took so long! i'm also super duper sorry that it kinda sucked? I didn't mean for that, i swear.

This fic is unbeta'd (because im lazy and impatient) so all mistakes are mine. If you spot any, PLEASE point them out! (especially tense confusion because I often flip flop from past to present)

as always, reviews make my month, so leaving one would be great!

(oh! i've had a couple people say that they may draw fanart/make posts/write for this fic, so if you wish to post some, feel free to put it up on tumblr and tag it as "fic: life isn't a romantic comedy" and i'll definitely look at it! i also post the updates for the fic in this tag!)

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