A/N: Inspired by the opening chapter of The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. This chapter's a catastrophic mess. No regrets.

Eren

Mikasa's grand plan to vacuum and reorganize the apartment crashed and burned for three reasons: A) we couldn't rev up the vacuum cleaner, thanks to the uncooperative electric grid, B) it was impossible to clean when we were drunkenly knocking things over in the dark, and C) for this crucial point, I should probably backpedal a bit.

Between the two of us, we polished off the vodka last night, which squares to nine-to-ten shots per person, spaced out across several hours. I'll try to reconstruct the play-by-play, but first, a disclaimer: everything's jumbled up in my head, so this is a super rough estimate of what happened.

For starters, let's put it out there: I get affectionate when I'm wasted. Way too affectionate. Connie and Armin can speak to this. One time, after a college party, I made Connie cuddle with me, and I gushed on and on about how much he meant to me. On another occasion, Armin had to swat me away because I kept trying to plant a kiss on the crown of his head. What can I say? I fucking love my friends.

Somewhere between the eighth and ninth shot, I held Mikasa close to my chest, letting her rest her head in the crook of my neck. We were splayed across the couch. She was lazily rubbing her ankle against my calf, and she was playing with my hair. She smelled like vanilla. "Mikasaaaa," I said, hugging her tightly, and she laughed into my shoulder. "You're the besssst, you know that, right? World's best roomie."

I remember being fixated on how cute her giggle was. It was a bubbly sound, and I itched to hear more of it. "You're so drunk, Eren," she remarked, her index finger tracing the angle of my jaw. And then she got the hiccups—one of her endearingly weird side-effects with alcohol.

This had us cracking up for a good while. And after that, I couldn't help myself. Running on auto-pilot, I cupped her cheek, and I kissed her. Soon after, we were making out, but every five seconds, she'd interrupt our groove with a damned hiccup.

"Hey, Doc. Hic. I could seriously use some medical ad—hic—vice," she said, pressing her lips against my neck. Her hand found its way down my pants, and I gasped when her fingers wrapped around me.

I helped her shrug out of her ridiculous Hawaiian shirt, and I lifted the colorful lei off of her neck, flinging it away somewhere. "Holding your breath might help," I said, reaching around to unhook her bra. We tried kissing for as long as possible without coming up for air, but that didn't do shit, so we clumsily swayed to the kitchen to see who could chug down a glass of water faster. (I won, by the way.)

In celebration of her speedy recovery, we tried to give each other high-fives, but it took us six tries because we kept missing. "Look at my elbow," Mikasa goaded me.

We each took one last shot before I bridal-carried her to her room, almost giving her a concussion when I nearly bonked her head against the doorframe. We crashed onto her mattress, both intact somehow, and within moments, I was thrusting into her, making her arch her back.

I wake up with a throbbing headache, ass-naked and shivering. Curled up next to me, Mikasa has hogged all of the blankets again, snoring softly. She loses the crease in her brow when she sleeps, and she buries herself deep into her comforter. It's a wonder she doesn't suffocate under all those layers. Something compels me to crane my neck forward and kiss her forehead—but immediately after, I kick myself.

This is bad. Really fucking bad. We're two months into being roommates. All of that funny business from Night One should've evaporated by now, yet it feels like we're spiralling out of control.

I stagger to my feet, crossing into the living room. Through the windows, glaring sunlight pours in, and I wince when my headache spikes. Our clothes are scattered everywhere. A bra here, a pair of boxers there. The empty vodka bottle is on its side, wedged between the coffee table and the couch. I throw on a hoodie and sweatpants before freshening up in the bathroom.

Yet again, Mikasa has mauled my neck with hickeys. There's also a bite mark near my clavicle. Midway through brushing my teeth, I hear a bzzzzz. Someone is banging at the door.

"Rise and shine, Princess," a grouchy voice calls from the other side.

I rinse my mouth and spit into the sink before dashing out to answer the door. Through the peephole, I can see a well-dressed dude standing with his arms crossed, tapping his foot. He seems pissed. He has an undercut, and he looks like he's only an inch or two over five feet.

The good news: I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. I swing the door open, and I blink twice, feigning confusion. "Um, hi," I say.

"Is your roommate around?" Mikasa's uncle asks flatly. Up close, Levi Ackerman looks even punier than he did through the peephole. He looks down at his shiny wrist watch—it's a Rolex. "I told her I'd be here at 8AM, but when I knocked the first time, no one answered. So I decided to have mercy on her and let her sleep in for another hour, yet here we are—"

"Sorry, man," I cut in, shrugging. "I think you've got the wrong address."

"You're fucking with me."

"Why would I be? I live here," I say coolly, but internally, I'm kinda losing my shit.

Levi scans me up and down, as if his brain is equipped with a lie-detector. His steely eyes zeroes-in over the hickeys on my neck, and I swallow nervously. "Mikasa sent me this address," he tells me, pulling out his phone. Written down in his Notes app is my own apartment number. Precisely this location.

"Mikasa? Mikasa Ackerman?!" I exclaim, widening my eyes and clapping a hand to my forehead. "Oh, I know her! We're friends! She actually doesn't live here. If you go down four blocks and take a left, there's a huge brick building. I think her apartment number is 1104? Yeah, that's it. 1104. She must've accidentally sent you my address instead of hers."

"Unbelievable," Levi growls. He looks like he's reaching the end of his fuse. "Four blocks which way, you said? I'm gonna give her a piece of my mind."

When Levi's footsteps clomp away, I shoot Armin this text message:

Hey man. Don't freak out if this pissed little guy shows up at your door. Stall him for a bit and when the convo gets awk just tell him to come to my place. Will explain later, i promise. Thx buddy. nothing illegal is happening btw, chill :)

Mikasa almost kicks me in the groin when I try to shake her awake. "Eren, stop," she grumbles, rolling away from me in her cocoon of blankets.

"Come on, wake up, please!" I insist, trying to tug the comforter off of her, but she has a death-grip on it. "Levi is here, and I've bought us about thirty minutes before he shows up, all red-hot and furious—you're welcome for that, by the way!"

Her eyes snap awake at this. "Fuck," she says, sitting straight up in bed. The blanket falls away from her shoulders, and she's topless. Baffled, she rubs at her eyes, wondering why her tits are out, and then it hits her. "Eren," she says slowly, covering herself with the blanket, looking mortified. "Did we…? Oh my God. Your neck…"

"To answer your question, yes. We fucked last night—but we'll figure out the Jar breakdown later. Right now, there's bigger fish to fry. Levi's on his way. Well, he's technically making a U-turn, but never mind that. Technicalities," I say hastily, tossing her the bra I scooped up from our living room. "Also, we should talk about maybe getting you on a morning-after pill because I don't see a condom anywhere. Like no wrappers, nothing. I'm really sorry about that… That was stupid. And careless."

It takes her a minute to process all of this. "Don't worry. IUD," Mikasa says slowly. She rubs at her temples, grimacing. "Fuck, I'm so hungover right now. I can't think. We hooked up? How?"

"We were cuddling, and then you got the hiccups, and I'm sorry, but that was just so cu—actually, fuck this. There's no time for an explanation right now," I blurt out, rifling through her drawers. I hand her an oversized sweater and a pair of jeans. "Hurry, get changed."

As I'm searching high and low through our bathroom cabinet for a bottle of Advil, Mikasa lurches in. Her sweater is on backwards. She's gripping the sink for support, and she's trying hard to keep her breathing steady.

"You good?" I ask, and before I know it, I'm scooping her hair back into a ponytail while she vomits into the toilet bowl.

Five minutes later, we each pop 800 milligrams of ibuprofen and chase it down with huge gulps of water. Mikasa informs me that I'm going to get my ass handed to me when Levi realizes that I sent him on a wild goose chase. I tidy up the living room, while Mikasa smears concealer and foundation over the two love bites I left her. My skin is too many shades tanner than hers, so covering up the evidence on my neck would only do more harm than good. Instead, Mikasa makes up an elaborate backstory. In a nutshell, I supposedly have a "crippling concussion," which I can legitimize by spouting off a bunch of clinical jargon. This concussion renders me confused and disoriented all the time, and as a result, I miraculously confused my own roommate with my best friend. As for the hickeys, we decide that I'm afflicted by a skin condition known as "fiddler's neck." It's a neck rash that professional violinists get when they go too hard on the Mozart.

"Mikasa, this just does not hold water," I protest. "There's no way he's gonna buy this."

"You were the one with the genius idea to make him walk an extra half an hour," she retorts. "Whatever, it'll be fine. He has a PhD in English literature. Just flex your medical expertise, and we might just swing it. But honestly, at this point, all we're really hoping for is damage control."

"Okay, cool. I guess we've reduced our damage to two flipped tables instead of three."

"Well, if that's the case, then buckle up," she replies, peering down the street through the window. "He's coming up the road, and he's ready to spill blood."

I join her by the window. I can make out Levi's tiny frame storming up the sidewalk. "I bet your phone's blowing up with calls and voice messages," I sigh.

"Good thing I have no idea where it is," she says. "Look, he's asking for directions because he wants to triple-check to make sure he's at the right place."

Levi waves down a woman, and he shows her the address on his phone. After inspecting it, she nods and turns to point at our apartment building. And my jaw drops. "No…" I breathe, taking a couple of steps backwards. "No, no, no, no, no. This cannot be happening."

"What?" Mikasa demands.

As if this day couldn't get any worse. I urge myself to re-approach the window, hoping that my eyes are playing tricks on me—but sure enough, I'm seeing with 20/20 vision.

"Eren?" Mikasa asks. "You're kinda freaking me out right now."

"That lady he's talking to," I say, facepalming. "Oh my God, why is this happening?"

"Sorry, what? Who is she?"

"That's my mom," I say with a dead voice. "She brings me baked goods from time to time. And she just so happens to be an ER doc—which means that our whole story with concussions and fiddler's neck just got the shaft."

Our apartment has detonated into sheer chaos. Mikasa is holding back a livid Levi, who's flip-flopping between lecturing her and yelling bloody murder at me. Mom, for some reason, is taking Levi's side, and she's lambasting me for "bamboozling this poor guy so early in the morning."

"I'm so disappointed, Eren!" Mom hollers. "No one deserves to be on the receiving end of this kind of treatment!"

"Go fuck yourself, kid," Levi adds. "Also, that wimpy-ass pixie—what was his name again? Arnold or something? Who the fuck cares. That Boy Scout can go fuck himself too. Also, Mikasa," he says, fighting against her grip. "What the fuck? I wake up at the asscrack of dawn. I drive an hour to get here. I bring you your fucking plant—which I painstaking kept alive, by the way. I drag over your fucking blender and all of your poofy jackets and shit, and this is how you express your appreciation? Not even the courtesy of a text reply—"

And this goes on for fifteen minutes. Eventually, we migrate into the living room. Mikasa and I sit gloomily on the couch, while Mom and Levi stand over us, taking turns to vent their frustrations. The Advil is taking its sweet fucking time to kick in. My head feels like a pressure cooker.

"You were overdoing the alcohol, weren't you?" Mom screeches. In my haste, I totally forgot to pick up the empty vodka bottle, which is now being waved in my face like a smoking gun. "Did you not learn anything about responsible drinking when you ended up in crutches three years ago?"

"Yeah, grow up, kid," Levi says, picking up where she left off. "This isn't Sigma Alpha Epsilon, where you can piss in recycling bins and deep-throat Wawa hoagies to your heart's desire. This is the adult world—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, I dropped my fucking frat to study for the MCAT!" I protest, throwing up my hands. "Also, Wawa? Hoagies? Please, this isn't the shithole Garden State. You're not in fucking New Jersey anymore. This is New York—"

"Eren!" Mom cuts in. "Your manners are atrocious today—"

"Mom, you're literally defending a guy who just accused your son of 'deep-throating Wawa hoagies'—"

"Mikasa!" Levi bellows, and beside me, she flinches. "What's that thing shoved up between the couch cushions?!"

Mikasa looks white as a sheet as she pulls a crumpled Hawaiian shirt out from the depths of the sofa. Evidently, I was not on top of my cleaning game this morning. "You wanted this back, right?" she squeaks.

Levi rips the shirt from her fingers, and he beats it against the ground, as if it's a doormat. "This is a relic," he snarls. "Not an accessory from Party-fucking-City. Also, Jesus Christ, how are you even capable of existing in this trash heap of an apartment?" He walks across the room, noting flaw after flaw, "Shit all shoved up in the couch, stains all over the floor—fuck, I almost tripped over this goddamned pharmacology textbook. Now, that would be a certain irony. A book that was written to help save lives ends up sending me to my fucking gravestone. Oh, and lookie here: dead pigeon on the fire escape. How lovely, it's decomposing."

"Eren, this is disgusting," Mom says, joining him by the window.

"Actually, Carla," Levi says. "I'd like to rephrase my statement. It seems like they're striving for an 'un-liveable' aesthetic. Going by that metric, I'd say they're, in fact, blowing it out of the water with their interior design choices."

"Ah, kinda like a method to the madness sorta deal?" Mom says, crossing over into Levi's camp and leaving her own kin high and dry.

"Precisely," Levi says. "So bravo, you brats."

"Who's responsible for all this?" Mom points at my neck. "So there is a girl in your life!"

"She left already," Mikasa says, covering for me—but then she flips the script, playing Judas. "They were so loud. Talk about inconsiderate."

"You are twenty-four, Eren!" Mom squawks at me. "Get it together, will you? This isn't college anymore!"

"Wait, I think our avian friend might actually have a fighting chance," Levi says, tapping his finger against the window. "He certainly looks mutilated, but I could've sworn he just twitched."

"Oh, is he really?" Mom has always had a soft spot for animals.

While the two of them debate the mortality of the pigeon corpse, Mikasa nudges me. I glare back at her, still salty about how she threw me under the bus. She rolls her eyes, silently telling me to get over it. Giving me a distressed look, she tips her chin at the Jar, which is sitting on the coffee table in front of us—in plain sight. The House Rules, Sexual Tension Jar policy, penalty log, and the rest of Mikasa's appendices and other documentation are tucked inside with the bills and coins.

Mikasa watches too many spy movies. She makes a series of erratic hand gestures—none of which make any sense—and before I can give her a totally, utterly perplexed look, she scampers up to Mom and Levi, asking if either of them wants a beverage.

"Are you inviting me to shit on the beer selection in your fridge?" Levi sneers. "I'll do so gladly."

Mikasa shoots me an urgent expression as she leads them away into the kitchen. The coast is clear. I reach for the Jar, but I retract my arm quickly when Mom suddenly turns around. "You seriously need to run a vacuum through here," she says, flicking away a dusty bunny from the underside of her foot.

Of course, Levi pops his head over the kitchen counter, adding, "I mean, at least dust bunnies and dust mites are low-maintenance pets. A hamster wouldn't survive a week here."

"Would you like a stout or a Pilsner?!" Mikasa says loudly, wrestling for their attention.

Hiding places, hiding places. While Levi and Mom bond over their favorite breweries, I grab the Jar, stuffing it under my baggy gray hoodie. But then Mom just has to turn around again. "Eren? When was the last time you washed this mug—Eren, you okay?"

I'm standing up, hunched over, clutching the jar close to my stomach. "Peachy!" I manage, gritting out a smile. "Just an upset stomach! Looks like all that drinking is getting to me. Be right back, I'm gonna go get some Tums."

The bathroom it is, then. I lock the door behind me and pull the Jar out from under my sweatshirt, scrambling to find a place to stow it. It's too clunky and huge for the cabinet behind our mirror, and it's too visible for the shelf, so the only remaining option is to put it in the bathtub and pull the shower curtain.

I give Mikasa a nod when I join everyone in the kitchen. Her shoulders relax slightly, and she points a finger gun to her brow when Mom and Levi aren't looking.

"So Mikasa," Mom says, drawing from her foamy Pilsner. "Eren clams up whenever I bug him about this, but please tell me who this mystery lady is. He always had a thing for more rebellious girls when he was in high school, and his friend Armin—have you met him yet?—anyways, Armin told me that he had a phase with sorority sisters in college, but by senior year, he went back to the alternative girls. Is that still accurate?"

"Oh, y-yeah! Totally!" Mikasa is an awful actress. Truly awful. "She, um, smokes cigarettes! And they play so much death metal. My ears bleed whenever she comes over!"

"You better not be smoking," Mom says, rounding on me. "Did med school teach you nothing about how nasty emphysema can be?"

"Chill, I don't plan on touching cigarettes with a ten-foot pole," I mutter, making a mental note to yell at Mikasa once this nightmare ends.

"The secondhand smoke is awful, though," Mikasa says unhelpfully.

"I need to take a piss," Levi announces. "Where's the toilet?"

I try to convince myself that no person of sound mind would snoop around the bathroom, checking to see what's hiding behind the shower curtain. There's no way in hell, right? Mikasa is giving me a weird look, raising an eyebrow at me as she continues inventing personality traits for my mythical girlfriend, while Mom eats it all up. Levi is taking forever in the bathroom. I hear the toilet flush and the sink run, but he still hasn't come out yet.

"So, Eren," Mom says, pointing the neck of her beer bottle at me. "When am I going to meet this girl?"

And then Armageddon hits. The bathroom door flies open, slamming against the wall, and Levi marches out. The Jar is tucked under his armpit, and Mikasa's damning, handwritten documents are in his fist. "Just so you know," he says, his tone dangerously level. "The math is wrong. You multiplied here." He jabs his index finger at the totals on our penalty log. "You were supposed to add and carry the one."

The Ackermans are out on a walk (i.e. Levi is grilling Mikasa). And it's just Mom and me, sitting across from each other at the table.

"Seriously, Eren? Fiddler's neck?" she says, shaking her head. "Were you guys seriously going to use that as an excuse? I would've gone for… ringworm. Even poison ivy would've been more plausible."

"Give me some more credit, will you? I was hungover. If anything, I'm still kinda hungover right now." I give Mom an embarrassed smile, and she ruffles my hair before getting up to refill my glass of water.

"All things considered, Mikasa's got a really well-thought-out system set up. She's really organized—unlike you," Mom says when she comes back, sliding the water across the table. She glances over at the chart dividing up our chores. "Thank God, you're not hoarding food in the fridge anymore. And I'll be damned. You actually regularly take out the trash now? That girl's got a good head on her shoulders. So tell me, are you guys… friends-with-benefits, or something? I'm confused about what's going on here."

"We're just roommates," I say firmly, refusing to make eye contact with Mom.

"Okay, so roommates... who have sex."

"We were drunk. We screwed up last night, and it won't happen again," I mutter.

"Why do you sound so guilty? It's not like you're in trouble," Mom says. "You're twenty-four. I can't ground you anymore."

I shrug, wishing this day could end sooner.

"She's really pretty, Eren," Mom remarks.

"We're just roommates. That's it."

"You know," Mom replies, pushing a platter of cookies towards me. "I can convince Keith to let you guys modify the lease if things get too weird. It's really no trouble—"

"What? It's fine, Mom!" I interrupt.

"Wow, that was a strong reaction."

"We're roommates and good friends—platonic friends."

"Whatever you say," Mom says, crossing her arms. "Your ears are red right now."

A/N: Originally, this chapter was gonna be double this current length, but I thought it would be better to split it into two. So here is Part I. Stay tuned for Part II! Hit me up with thoughts and comments!