Chapter Text
I tried to stand up, but I was still pinned under Levi’s tail. “Eren!” Hanji screeched as she ran over to us. I could feel Levi tense up at her approach and knew that he would bolt if someone didn’t stop her. I looked up and found Armin was way behind Hanji, he hadn’t even made the bottom of the cliff by the time she was halfway across the beach.
“Levi,” my voice was calm as I spoke and his eyes flicked to me quickly before going back to Hanji. “You need to move off of me so I can stop Hanji from tackling us.” He nodded and then moved his tail, but kept his upper body over me. I was pretty sure he was going to hiss again or attack her, so I quickly moved out from under him and went to meet Hanji. I forgot about not having a shirt on.
“Eren! Is that your friend?!” Her voice was really high pitched and she was practically hopping in place from excitement.
“Um, yeah.” Her face light up when Levi flicked his tail out of the water as if he were showing it off. “But he’s not really comfortable around other people.” I hurried to explain, but she’d already pushed past me and was walking quickly into the water.
“So you’re Levi, huh? Armin was telling me about you on the way over.” She stopped a few feet away from Levi and smiled brightly at him. “I hope we can be good friends, but I have a few questions to ask of you.”
I was shocked by Hanji whenever she showed a bit of maturity even though she was on the verge of jumping up and down from excitement. It was strange to see her acting all calm and collected when seconds before she was practically bouncing up and down as she ran. I walked over and stood next to her.
“Well that depends on if I get alone time with the brat.” Levi glared at her then and she simply cocked her head to the side.
“What do you mean? Eren comes here in all of his spare time. I’m only asking for a few of your hours a couple of times a week.” She grinned and then looked around us before leaning closer to him. She lowered her voice to a whisper that was just loud enough for me to hear. “And maybe a few samples.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Levi muttered and leaned away, but Hanji was beaming where she stood and I was sure she was about to explode into a hysterical fit of something.
She turned quickly towards me, “Eren, sweetie, can you go help Armin get a few things for me from my car?” She asked and smiled again as Armin walked over to us.
“Um, sure?” I turned towards Armin who was huffing loudly. “Come on Armin let’s go get Hanji’s stuff.”
He made a loud exasperated sound while throwing his hands into the air, but followed me anyway. I looked over my shoulder at Levi and Hanji, who were both staring at me. I hope those two don’t kill each other, I thought and looked back in front of me. Armin was hurriedly walking up the cliff and I jogged to catch up to him. I had to admit his little outburst had been cute.
“Hey, Armin,” I began and slowed my pace as we walked into the forested cliff top.
“What, Eren?” He answered and looked back over his shoulder at me.
“Uh, you don’t think they’ll kill each other, do you?”
He made a weird huffing noise. “Of course not, Hanji wants to talk to him and see if he can bring back something for her.”
“And that’s why we’re the ones that have to get her shit.” I muttered under my breath and watched as Armin pulled her car keys out of his pocket and opened up the trunk.
“At least these are the smaller aquariums.” He smiled at me and pulled out a few tanks and handed one to me. I was glad it was empty too. He made sure to close the trunk all the way, apparently it had a knack of popping open at random times. I followed after Armin who had set a fairly slow pace as we walked towards the cliff. “Will you stop that!” He snapped at me suddenly.
“Stop what?” I snapped back.
“You’re whining and grumbling again. Not only that, but you’re also stepping on my feet.” He huffed and glared at me from over his shoulder.
“Well sorry,” I mumbled and looked at the ground as I walked after him. I looked out over the cove when we reached the edge of the cliff and found Hanji sitting casually on the sand while Levi was laying in the waves leaning against his fist nonchalantly. It was kind of strange since he’d been so tense earlier when he’d first seen her running towards us. Levi’s eyes flicked up suddenly when Armin and I started to walk down the trail and remained glued to me.
Hanji looked over her shoulder when she noticed Levi’s attention had wandered elsewhere. Her eyes landed on us and a large grin spread across her face. “Eren! Armin!” She yelled and waved one of her hands at us like she was trying to get our attention. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her. “Come here quickly!” She waved at us again and turned back to Levi. I noticed she said something to him, but we were too far away to hear anything. Levi lifted his eyes to mine and then he quickly turned away and disappeared into the waves. I felt slightly disappointed at seeing him leave.
“What is it Hanji?” Armin asked and set the tank down on the cold sand.
“Hehe, oh you’ll see. It’ll be great!” She laughed and grinned at us while she stood up and wiped sand off of her legs. I noticed she was wearing tan shorts and a dark brown tank top under a white, short-sleeved, button down shirt. I knew she was insane, but this was far beyond that.
“Hanji it’s like 30 degrees Fahrenheit out right now, what are you wearing?” I suddenly needed to know that answer, I wasn’t even quite sure why, but it seemed really important.
She looked down at herself with a baffled expression and then broke out into a grin. “Eren, it’s actually 45 out right now, and I’m wearing clothes. I have a high resistance to the cold, and the heat for that matter.”
“Right,” I looked at her and decided that she was definitely insane, more than insane actually. “Whatever.” I muttered and pushed the empty tank into her arms. She looked at it a little perplexed before putting it on the ground.
“Well, someone’s a little pouty today.” I glared at her, but she only grinned at me. “Is it because you have to share Levi? Haha, that’s so cute Eren! He’ll be back in a little bit, so you don’t have to worry at all.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I grumbled and sat down in the sand. It was only slightly warmer than it had been earlier since the sun had risen a little more.
“So where did Levi go?” Armin asked as Hanji sat down by us.
She cackled, “Oh, you’ll see when he gets back here.”
“What did you guys talk about when we were gone?” I asked trying to seem casual about it. They both saw through it.
“That’s a secret,” She grinned at me and laughed again.
“Why are you all so loud and annoying?” The deep, bored voice broke into our conversation.
“Oh! Levi you’re back!” Hanji yelled and sprang up. I looked over at him and caught him rolling his eyes at her. I was a little surprised that they seemed like friends already, especially considering how hyped up Hanji could be when anything related to the sea was involved.
“Yeah, and can you stop yelling all the time?” He asked and leaned onto his arm with a bored expression. I walked over to them after Armin.
“So are you going to tell us what you’re hiding?” Armin asked.
“Yeah and what gets to go in the tanks too.” I looked between them and watched as Hanji broke out into another grin.
“Oh, they weren’t needed!” Armin’s mouth dropped as soon as Hanji finished her sentence. I could tell he was slightly pissed off at having to walk all the way up to her car to get the tanks when they weren’t even needed, I know I was pissed off at her for making us do the extra work.
“What do you mean?” I asked and looked at Levi, as if he knew. He just shrugged.
“Oh, you see, I just wanted a little time to talk to him without you guys around!”
“You could have told us that!” Armin yelled exasperatedly at her.
Hanji just laughed and fixed her glasses as they slipped down her nose. “If I had, you little cute brats would have tried to listen in or would have argued about it.”
I had to admit she was right about that, but I was still pissed I had to get that stupid tank for no reason. “Something tells me we’ll have to carry them back to your car.” Armin groaned and Hanji nodded a little excitedly at us. Both of us groaned and Levi smirked at us.
“So, you’re going to tell us what you were talking about right?” I asked again and looked at Levi.
“I’m not telling and neither is Hanji.” Levi smirked again at us and absentmindedly flicked his tail against the water. “Besides you guys should probably leave for the day,” his voice was quiet and he looked over his shoulder out at the water.
“Why?” I whined and crossed my arms over my chest. I could careless if Hanji saw me pout and whine and Armin already saw it on a daily basis so he just sighed heavily.
“Are you pouting?” Levi asked and perked up a little bit. Something dark flashed in his eyes, but I chose to ignore it. “I’ll remember that for later, but you really should be leaving now. Those weird creatures tend to hunt at this time of the day and I should be getting back.” He let his voice fade out slowly on the last few words.
“You mean the Capaill Uisce?” Hanji responded next to me. I could sense her getting even more excited.
“Huh? I guess, I don’t know what you call them and I always forget what we call them.”
“So there are others!” Hanji practically shouted, which got Levi to roll his eyes at her.
“Why wouldn’t there be?” Levi asked her back.
“Do they all look like you?” Armin questioned him further.
“Only a few, but none of the ones from here look like me.”
“So you aren’t from here.” I looked at him and he only nodded.
“Well, if he says we should leave, we probably should since I don’t have anything on me that gets rid of them, but could you get some more information about them for me Levi?”
He looked up at Hanji and shrugged. “I’ve tried to get info about them from other merfolk, but they all tell me to stay away from them.” He rolled his eyes again and I realized it was actually normal for him to roll his eyes at something stupid. “And I haven’t found out anything new while stalking them for the past month and a half. Well, I guess there are more now and they tend to be a little psychotic at times. They are good hunters though, so you should be careful.”
“Well if you find anything new out, just let Eren know, okay?” Hanji grinned again before giggling a little bit.
“Yeah I will.”
“Thanks!” Hanji turned on her heel and started to walk off before stopping, “Armin, let’s give them a few minutes to say bye, and you can help me take the tanks back to my car.”
“Sure,” Armin said and looked at me over his shoulder. I wasn’t even sure what that look he gave me was, but I had a feeling it had something to do with him telling me to not do something stupid.
“Oh, and I’ll you two home!” Hanji yelled at me from over her shoulder. I felt the waves rush past my ankles as we watched them walk up the cliff and disappear from view.
“How long’s a few minutes?” Levi asked. I sighed, realizing this was going to be a normal occurrence between us.
“Shorter than the last time we were left alone.”
“Then come over here.” I looked over at him right as he grinned, showing off all of his teeth.
“You’re really creepy when you do that.” He snickered before he grabbed my ankles and pulled my legs out from under me. I fell over with a startled cry. He snickered at me again as I sat up; at least it was sand and not salt water I fell in this time.
“You’re not very graceful.”
“No ones graceful when they fall over.” I shot back and he just snickered again. “What?”
“Nothing, you just have beautiful eyes.” I opened my mouth to snap back, but then realized what he’d said.
“I, what?” He smiled lightly at me before cupping my face in his hands and giving me a gentle kiss on the lips. Then he was gone. He’d slipped back into the deeper parts of the ocean while I just sat there in the lulling waves, too shocked to do anything else except stare out at the waves. A few minutes past before I was able to snap myself back into reality with a jolt. I leapt out of the sea and rushed for the cliff. I almost forgot my shoes, but remembered them and ran back to grab them before sprinting the rest of the way to Hanji’s car. Somehow, half the day had passed without me noticing.