Author's Notes: Hey y'all chapter 2 was getting to 9k words asjhjkdfhlkl

I was losing my mind so I thought to upload the first half as its own chapter. The second half (the smut hehe) will follow shortly (I just need to wrestle some of these pesky lines down!)

And also, many heartfelt thanks for the love and support for this fic so far on ao3! I love y'all and I hope you enjoy what's coming up~

The next day found Annie moodily trudging to her morning class that she happened to share with Pieck.

Fragments of the images and sounds from the previous night still flashed in her mind's eye. She tried to stamp them out somewhat half-heartedly.

You are in school! A formal institution of learning! she berated herself. Get a grip, my goodness.

"Good morning, little Annie!" Pieck greeted her cheerfully. The inside joke between them being that Annie was only a centimeter or so shorter than her. "Aren't we a little ray of sunshine today~"

"Morning, Pieck," Annie grumbled back, setting her things on their shared desk. It was still 15 minutes before class started. Their instructor, Professor Levi, mumbled profanities under his breath as the computer console refused to load. A piping tall tumbler of black tea stood steaming on the desk beside him.

"So, did you check out our gift? " Pieck asked, sidling up closer to Annie's side conspiratorially, leaning her head lazily against the blonde's shoulder as she looked up at her with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

An involuntary flush of Annie's cheeks was the only answer Pieck needed. Annie shifted her gaze to the window, not wanting to give anything else away.

Pieck giggled. "Oh you did ! Sasha was a bit worried we put you on the spot there, but I told her I was pretty sure you'd at least check it out."

Sitting up and facing Annie now, Pieck whispered, "So, did you like it?"

"I saw some men going at it with some BDSM play, Pieck … It may have given me more stress than relieved it, I'm afraid." Annie gave Pieck a pointed look, but Pieck was more than used to Annie's icy glares.

Still somewhat deflated, Pieck pouted. "Oh, that's a shame … was that all you saw though?"

Annie's ears flushed. "I-isn't this getting a bit too personal—"

"Shut up, brats, and listen up. We don't have all day, not with this machine on its last breath." Levi announced while kicking the console's CPU.

"I-I'm not sure brute force helps in this context, sir," Marco mumbled a few seats away from Pieck and Annie. "Especially not for a computer science class…"

"What was that, Bodt?"

"N-nothing!"

A few sparse giggles were heard in the room, none brave enough to last more than a few seconds in Levi's midst.

"As I was saying, we don't have all day. Now, for credit, can anyone tell me what's the difference between C and C++ in computing language?"

Pieck's hand shot up. As Levi raised an eyebrow to acknowledge her, she started to list the differences without missing a beat.

" …that's all, I think," she ended with a small smile.

"Excellent. I expected nothing less from you, Miss Finger. At least someone's up to speed with the reading."

"As for the rest of you twerps—"

The rest of the class passed quickly—as Levi's lectures usually do—with rapid-fire info-dumping, trick questions, and on-the-spot code test runs that left most of his students relieved when his classes came to their eventual end.

Annie and Pieck walked together to the canteen, where they usually met Sasha for lunch on the days they started the day with Levi's class. Once they arrived, they found their friend to be in the company of Bertholdt, who seemed to be confused as he gestured at his phone.

"Are you sure you transferred the right amount, Sasha?" Annie could hear Bertholdt from a distance. "There are just one too many zeroes than I'm used to seeing in my bank account, this can't possibly be right."

In contrast to Bertholdt's obvious bundle of anxiety, Sasha happily replied, "Relax Bertholdt, I may not be the brainy one here, but even I can't transfer extra money that we didn't actually earn."

Money? Annie wondered. Since when did Bertholdt work together with Sasha?

As Annie and Pieck approached Sasha's table, Bertholdt diverted his attention from Sasha and greeted them.

"Oh, hello Pieck," he gave the brunette a little nod, before turning to Annie.

"Hi Annie, you look nice today," he said as he gave her a little smile.

If Annie was in an anime, she was pretty certain Bertholdt would have little cartoon flowers rotating around his face right now. And maybe a little leaf sprout at the top of his head.

Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear self-consciously, Annie replied, "Hi Bertholdt, it's been a while."

"And thank you," she added in a smaller voice. Annie wasn't quite sure what was nice about her disheveled hair and the loose hoodie she wore. Bertholdt was just being his nice, usual self. There was nothing else to read into it.

To Annie's surprise, Pieck jumped into Sasha and Bertholdt's conversation.

"We can pull the numbers out to give you some peace of mind, but we ran through them last night and I'm pretty certain it's right."

Pieck was involved in this too? What were they running, an underground casino or something? Knowing the capacity of Pieck's scheming mind … the sky's the limit for the woman's imagination.

"So please don't underestimate yourself. You should really give yourself more credit where it's due, Bertholdt," Pieck said with a gentle smile.

"It's your rightful and deserved cut, Mr Hoover! So take it!" Sasha said as she playfully gave Bertholdt a karate chop on the back, causing the taller man to sputter.

"Well, if you both say so—thank you," Bertholdt replied, finally conceding. "It's a little unexpected but every single cent's been a huge help."

"Help?" Annie wondered out loud, only realizing belatedly that she spoke out loud when the trio of brunettes turned towards her.

There were a few seconds of awkward silence before Pieck explained, "Remember Dr Jaeger's class on entrepreneurship, Annie? The one Sasha and I are taking but you decided not to because of a schedule clash?"

At Annie's nod of affirmation, Pieck continued. "The project for this term is doing our own start-up, with the aim of at least breaking even with our costs. Bertholdt isn't in the class, but he's helping us out—as an employee, I suppose—and we're paying him for his services."

"Ah yes, that's right, Pieck!" Sasha chuckled somewhat nervously as she slung an arm around Pieck's shoulders. "You are always so good at explaining … difficult things."

Before Annie could ask what was "difficult" about explaining the instructions for a class assignment, Bertholdt added, "Things have been a little tight financially—dad's been in and out of the hospital lately."

Annie remembered the senior Mr Hoover, who had constantly been down with a medical condition since Annie could remember. The thought of Bertholdt singularly shouldering the burden of his father's condition made Annie a little sad.

"I was a little skeptical at first when Pieck and Sasha approached me, but things have been going unexpectedly great so far. My father and I owe a lot to these two."

"I'm sorry to hear that about your dad, Bertholdt—I remember health had always been a struggle for him." Annie replied. "It's good that things are improving."

Annie didn't know what was in the air. Perhaps, it was the previous night's lack of sleep as she grappled with her feelings of confusion and shame. Or maybe, it was the gravity of the familial problems Bertholdt just shared—of all the people Annie knew, Bertholdt and his kind, calming presence deserved his personal problems the least.

Despite her sympathy for the taller man, even Annie herself did not expect the words that came out of her mouth next.

"Listen, I'm usually not forthcoming like this, but is there any way I could chip in to help out? Like with whatever you're selling—I'd like to help out your dad too," she said, while gesturing to reach for her wallet.

While Annie knew what she said was uncharacteristic of her, Bertholdt's frozen reaction was still confusing.

A nervous flush tinted the taller man's cheeks. Beads of sweat started to form on his brow. Beside him, Sasha started laughing somewhat chaotically while whacking Bertholdt's sweatered arm in a repetitive motion.

"A-Annie wants to help, Pieck," Sasha cried while giving her a somewhat desperate look. "Honestly, I think you're already helping enough, Annie!" was all Sasha could say before Pieck smacked a hand over the former's mouth.

Annie looked at all of them in confusion. How could she have helped if she … hasn't?

"Ehem," Pieck coughed. "What Sasha means is, your moral support is more than enough. Really."

"T-that's right! Friends don't make friends pay their fathers' hospital bills, Annie," Bertholdt added with a nervous chuckle. "Thank you, though. It truly means a lot."

Despite his evident nervousness, Bertholdt's small smile seemed sincere enough. Warmth blossomed in Annie's chest.

"Well, okay, if you all say so," Annie pouted. "Reject my rare gesture of generosity then."

Sasha and Bertholdt sighed, shoulders visibly relaxing, relieved as though they were off the hook with being interrogated for a crime.

Annie wasn't born yesterday. She was aware the brunette trio was not being fully honest with her. Well, honest wasn't the word, but perhaps, not completely transparent?

Unlike Pieck who had the masterful capacity to deceive even the most sensitive of lie detector tests, Bertholdt and Sasha had very obvious "tells" when they were not telling the whole truth—something Annie only knew from their years of friendship.

Sasha's was pretty obvious—while she was naturally gregarious, this tended to go a few notches if she was trying to keep things under wraps.

Once, Sasha brought a baked potato to the gym. When their gym teacher asked what the savory smell was, instead of eating the baked potato to hide the evidence, Sasha just started laughing (as she did in the present time) and hitting Mikasa's arm. The latter gave her a silent glare but was careful not to out Sasha nonetheless.

Sasha was not by any means stupid (as what her instructors, like Shadis, might think) but when stressed, she tended to default to her instincts rather than thinking things through at least once .

Bertholdt, Annie knew, rarely told absolute lies, because they were too obvious and he would be easily found out.

Half-truths, or spun stories, however, he had a talent for concocting out of thin air.

There was a time in their childhood when Bertholdt, Reiner, and herself found themselves (involuntarily) in the company of a homeless man as he intercepted them on their way home from school. The man mournfully told them his sob story of how he lost his family in a skiing accident, and it was all his fault.

Two years later, Annie was shocked to hear Bertholdt adapt that man's story into his own, to justify a week-long absence from school. His delivery was perfect—hitting the right note of mournfulness without resorting to dramatics—just being his usual reticent self without flinching or missing a beat. Bertholdt got away with his absence from school just like that (and his otherwise clean record most certainly helped too).

That comprised one of Annie's core memories of Bertholdt: when she came to the realization that he was capable of much more than many gave him credit for. While Bertholdt was often nervous on his own two feet and betrayed some form of anxiety with his body language, that incident told Annie that he was very capable to turn all of those "tells" off when the situation actually required it.

In a way, his anxious "tells" were the perfect disguise for his actual talent.

The world would be in shock if they saw him as he truly was, she mused.

Well, despite their differences, Annie could obviously see through Sasha and Bertholdt's "tells" at the present time, and wondered if she should call them out for it. She was certain her friends had their reasons for behaving the way they did, though it was still a mystery to her what they had to hide, or why.

Before Sasha could quickly change the topic and ask what was for lunch, Annie decided to press her friends further.

"What are you guys selling, anyway? It sounds like they're selling like hotcakes."

The last time Annie heard Bertholdt laugh this much was when he and Reiner had to admit to accidentally breaking the Jaegers' front window after a game of catch.

Perhaps he had not finetuned his affinity for impassiveness then—Bertholdt's lowkey unhinged laughter peppered Reiner's otherwise persuasive retelling of what had happened. ( Did you know flying squirrels could fling items up to 5 times their size when they're in flight, Dr Jaeger? I saw it in a documentary! )

"Erm. Interesting you say hotcakes because it's actually … cakes," Bertholdt said. The reddish flush was back on his cheeks, and he looked at the other two women, silently pleading with them to back him up.

Shocked, Pieck's normally droopy, relaxed eyes looked as big as saucers. Sasha's too.

"Cakes. Yes. We are selling cakes. Muffins, cookies, baked goods, the whole lot of it."

They looked at each other shiftily. "Y-yes, that's right. So what Bertholdt meant with your emotional support being enough is—"

"—you just missed the pre-order deadline, and we're all queued up."

"Our Bert's a wizard in the kitchen ," Pieck continued with a wink, "but even he has his limits."

The group parted ways after lunch, and Annie made her way to the library.

Annie made a beeline to her favorite corner—the one behind the bookshelves, hidden from view—hoping to get her solo assignments done in a fresh environment. Returning to her dorm room might be too distracting, too reminiscent of last night's events.

Indeed, the previous evening was spent sinking into this new hyperfixation, going down the rabbit hole of knowing everything and anything she could about this streamer.

The streamer had his own page in Opulence that showed a brief bio, his weekly schedule, and the polls he talked about.

Each entry on his page also had a comment section that boasted of the same words of excitement and praise Annie saw in the live—the streamer's account patiently and politely thanked each one of his fans.

As a creature of habit and routine, Annie was almost sure she would sink back into that hyperfixation if she went back to her dorm. So, library time it was.

As she walked to her usual spot, Annie noticed Ymir and Historia huddled cozily in a corner. Ymir was reading something casually on her phone, while her arm was slung on Historia's shoulders, who was immersed in the book she was reading.

At another table, she saw an odd group: Reiner, Marcel, Marco, Floch, and Jean all huddled at a table, seemingly deep in discussion. Or rather, it looked like they were at the cusp of an argument if the librarian's deathly glare wasn't aimed at them.

Annie could not tell much at a glance, but Floch looked like he was getting on Marcel's last nerve, pointing a finger and sneering at the older Galliard, who did a good job of keeping things civil even when his tense smile and twitching eyebrow betrayed his irritation.

Marco, being Marco, tried to diffuse the situation between the two redheads while Jean looked lost and helpless in his seat.

Reiner was evidently bored and not having it . Clearly growing more restless by the second, Reiner's eyes wandered to the passersby along the library's aisles. Seeing Annie, he acknowledged her with a small nod, which she returned in kind.

Despite being only a college sophomore, Reiner's weariness and facial hair made him look much older than his years.

All things considered, Annie wouldn't swap her struggles with Reiner's at the moment. At least hers were self-induced (to a point). She also loathed dealing with any kind of verbal altercation, especially with Floch. The mental gymnastics that redhead made anyone go through … Annie thanked the heavens for small mercies.

After successfully securing her table to herself, the hours flew by in a breeze. Annie made good headway into an essay she was working on. She had whipped out her reading glasses sometime in between—a chic pair with transparent frames, a vanity piece she allowed herself from a shopping trip with Hitch.

As Annie leaned back and stretched her neck, she noticed a hulking giant wander down the aisles looking for a table. Engrossed in her work, she didn't notice the library had filled up since she first got there.

Annie raised her hand to get Bertholdt's attention. He looked a bit surprised, pink tinting his cheeks once more as he walked towards her with an armful of books.

"Do you mind if I share this table with you?" Bertholdt asked timidly. "The library is full, and I just wanted to read these today. I don't need to take them out on loan."

"Hey, sure, that's fine. I was just about to finish with this," Annie gestured at her laptop. "I'll be off in a bit."

"Oh, okay … thank you, Annie."

The both of them worked in silence, Annie typing away at her laptop while Bertholdt, jittery at first, seemed to calm his nerves after a few minutes. With quick ease, he flipped through the stack of books, taking notes on his phone intermittently.

Annie breathed a huge sigh of relief as she typed the last sentence of her draft. Finally. She probably wouldn't look at it again until the submission day.

As she turned her laptop off, she looked up to notice Bertholdt's eyes on her. Caught in the act, he quickly turned his gaze elsewhere.

Feeling embarrassed, Annie smacked her laptop closed a bit more forcefully than needed.

How long had he been looking at her?

Time stood embarrassingly still for a moment.

Bertholdt eventually broke the silence, suppressing an embarrassed cough.

"I've never seen you with glasses before, Annie."

"Oh, they're new … I just wear them when I use the computer."

She tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. Was her hair always messy when he was around?

"Right, right," Bertholdt mustered, suddenly finding the library book covers interesting.

"The glasses suit you, maybe you should wear them more often," the latter part was barely a whisper.

Annie felt a sudden, almost familiar heat creep up in her chest and neck at the compliment.

"Thank you," she managed to croak. "Maybe I will."

In an attempt to change the topic of conversation to something she was more at ease with, Annie took a glance at Bertholdt's pile of books.

They were mostly cookbooks, she noticed.

"Looking for new cooking ideas?"

"Yeah … I guess you could say that."

Annie leaned towards Bertholdt's side of the table, sliding one of the cookbooks from his grasp to flip through it.

" Beginner's guide to cookie making — I thought Pieck said you're pretty good with it already?"

"—ah, no harm in going back to basics, am I right?" Bertholdt started to sweat again.

Annie looked at him and his sweaty forehead suspiciously. But what was there to lie about baking? Perhaps he was just being that modest?

"Pieck and Sasha really lucked out having you on their team. You're really putting a lot of effort into this."

Bertholdt rubbed a nervous hand over his sweatered arm, as he steeled himself to look at her.

"I know they're your friends, Annie, but you don't need to believe everything Pieck and Sasha say–"

Startled at Annie's immediate pointed look at the potential shade cast towards her friends, Bertholdt stammered, "N-no, I didn't mean that they're dishonest. It's just that they're being way too kind, to the point of exaggeration. It's just … cookies, it's not really that big of a deal."

Annie leaned over and slid the cookbook back into its original place. Her hands brushed against the textured fabric of Bertholdt's sweater. It was surprisingly soft.

"Maybe, Mr Hoover, you should let me try one of those cookies before you decide they're mediocre, huh? Not everyone knows this, but I've got a bit of a sweet tooth myself."

Before her very eyes, Bertholdt flushed flaming red.

Was she coming on too strong? About cookies?

Before Annie could ask if he was feeling warm, Bertholdt's phone buzzed to life on the table. Sasha's name lit up the screen.

"Hey Sasha, it's me — now? I'm in the library. No, no, I'm free, but isn't it too soon? No, no – I'm game for it, that's okay. Alright, I'll be there… same time, right? Yup. Okay. See you."

In between his responses to Sasha, Bertholdt had stood up and gathered his things. From her vantage point, Annie noticed just how tall he hovered over her, how wide his shoulders actually were. The library books looked relatively tiny as he held them against his sweatered chest.

Just where had this Bertholdt been all this time?

His aura certainly came across differently when he didn't slouch or try to hide his height.

"Sorry Annie, I've got to make a move—work stuff," Bertholdt said with a small smile. "Maybe, I'll catch you around sometime?"

"Sure, and take it easy with the roll play."

Bertholdt looked at her hesitantly, confusion—possibly distress?— lacing his olive green eyes.

"Roll – you know, like bread rolls? It's a bread pun. Sorry, I just really like pastries."

"Oh, bread rolls ," Bertholdt echoed, understanding what Annie had meant. "Sorry, I just caught that—I'll tell Sasha, she loves carbs, I think she'll find it funny."

Annie idly scrolled her phone after Bertholdt's departure. She enjoyed spending time with herself, but she had to admit to herself that his presence did not steal from her peace.

As she browsed through her usual rotation of social media sites, a notification from the Opulence app popped up on her screen.

[New] New Stream: The Colossal at 5:30pm

Annie felt her breath catch in her throat.

5:30pm, that was in an hour.

She quickly looked around and guiltily swiped the notification away, even when she was at the library's coveted corner table and no one else would've been able to see.

As she packed her things into her backpack, Annie thanked the skies for her foresight in getting her essay out of the way.

If the previous evening was any indicator, she was very likely not getting anything else done that night.

At the other table, Jean furrowed his brows when he received the same notification Annie did. Out of the periphery of his vision, he had seen Bertholdt's hulking presence depart from the library too.

It was Friday, though. Did he get his dates mixed up?

Swiping his calendar app open, Jean confirmed that it was indeed Friday and his soul had not yeeted into the next week as he had feared.

Jean looked across the table at Floch, whose brooding, darkened expression suggested the redhead was none the wiser with this latest development as well.

"Sorry, Jean, did you catch what I just said?" Marco's voice cut into Jean's muddle of thoughts.

Jean straightened his back and gave his freckled friend a sheepish smile. "Oh hey, sorry mate, could you repeat that again?"

"Marco was just delegating what each of us needs to do before our next project meeting," Marcel interjected, steelily holding Jean's gaze. "It's all in the shared docs. Don't let poor Marco repeat himself—he's gone through more than enough today."

"Thanks, Marcel," Marco replied gratefully while sparing a concerned look at Jean. His friend certainly seemed more distant and spaced out lately. Well, ever since he started spending more time with Floch …

As if on cue, Floch abruptly stood up. This caused the legs of his chair to loudly scrape against the library's tiled floor, inviting yet another side-eye from the irate, long-suffering librarian.

"Well if that's that, I'm going to bounce. Jeannie, you coming?"

Jeannie ?

Reiner, Marcel, and Marco exchanged confused glances but did not say anything otherwise.

Pretending to ignore his embarrassment at the newly-coined nickname, Jean practically shoved his things into his bag.

"Update the group chat if there's anything new!" Jean scurried to say his goodbyes while tailing the mushroom-haired redhead.

"Bye, losers," said the redhead without sparing the rest a second glance.

Marco looked at the departing couple ( were they a couple? ) in disbelief. "Huh."

"Do you think they're dating?" Reiner echoed Marco's thoughts, as he reclined and slung an arm behind Marcel's chair.

"Who knows?" Marcel shrugged. "Truth is often stranger than fiction. I won't be surprised—or care too much—either way."

"Aww, don't be cold," Reiner replied, giving the shorter brown-haired man a pout. "At least, Jean is still Marco's friend, as he is mine … I think."

"Jean isn't the one I'm bothered with," Marcel gave Reiner a very pointed look.

"I know, I know—I'm not a big fan of this group either. No offense, Marco."

Marco shrugged. "Don't worry, I feel the same way. If things take a turn for the worst, we could ask Prof Smith for a peer evaluation I guess? To make sure things stay fair?"

"I know you mean well, Marco, but I'm not confident that'll make a difference with Floch. We've got a weekly firsthand view of that guy sucking up to him in class."

"Well, Prof Smith seems pretty impartial and professional…"

"Have you seen how he treats Armin?" Reiner said incredulously. "I swear he thinks he's his mini-me."

"Age Armin up 20 years and give him an undercut, that's Erwin right there for ya," Marcel replied with a slight roll of his eyes.

"Well, age you up 20 years and you'll be looking like Magath," Reiner teased Marcel playfully.

"20 years? You wound me. It'll take at least 35 before my skin starts looking like that ," Marcel responded while jabbing Reiner's side, his mood visibly lighter.

Marco smiled to himself as he watched Reiner and Marcel continue to banter while packing their things.

At least one couple in their friendship circle wasn't dysfunctional.

Author's Notes: Yep, this was pretty much a world-building chapter.

What are Sasha and Pieck up to? What is their business with Bertholdt? Why are Floch and Jean so secretive? Will Annie ever catch a break?

More will be revealed ... soon ... ?

As usual, comments and kudos are a writer's lifeblood - any feedback would be highly appreciated ?