Chapter Text
Eren was really getting tired of college. He would be lying if he said it wasn't taking a toll on him. He had never felt so drained in his entire life. It had been three weeks since had done anything fun. He hadn't slept in days. Coffee was now his ichor, and the artificial energy was much needed. Why was Eren in such terrible shape you ask? One word. Two syllables. Finals.
Eren was seriously screwed. Although Levi had been tutoring him for a few months now, he and Eren had plunged into awkwardly avoiding each other so they hadn't been very productive and his Classic literature grade was suffering because of it, even Jean had a better mark than him and the bastard had the IQ of a horse. Eren's only hope was to get a pretty good grade on his final exam so he had been cramming, yet he had neglected to even start his watercolour piece or take any good photos for his photography class.
Eren only remembered his two art projects after Mikasa had asked him how he was doing with choosing his major. He had been in college for months and his major was still undecided. With his grades suffering in English he had almost forgotten to work on any art at all.
Eren would be lying if he said he had no muse. Lately he had only one thing on his mind. Any art piece he had started within the past few months no matter if it was a landscape piece, a portrait, or abstract, was inspired by one person. The very person he was avoiding like the plague. Levi Ackerman was his new muse.
Eren rubbed his bleary eyes and glared at the canvas in front of him. On it a skilful mix of grays, blues, blacks, browns, and pale greens had blended together in what could only be described as ethereal. Eren readily admitted that his latest piece was startlingly beautiful, but it was not what he had set out to paint. He had no idea what exactly he had meant to capture on canvas, but it definitely wasn't that. On a large canvas painted in great detail was an almost perfect likeness of Levi.
"Fuck," Eren whispered, "fuck, fuck, Fuck!" Apparently Eren was more screwed than he had previously thought. He wanted nothing more than to destroy the image he had worked so hard on, but a part of him felt that out would be a crime to ruin something so beautiful. Eren couldn't bring him self to destroy it so he did the next best thing, Eren made sure the paint was dry before throwing a sheet over the canvas, putting on a jacket, and walking out his dorm with his camera in his hands.
The crisp air slapped Eren in the face as soon as he walked out the door. He breathed in deeply instantly feeling 10 times better. November in Trost was always pretty nice at least to Eren it was.
Eren looked at the scenery with a wide grin on his face. It felt nice to be out of his form for a while. He held up his camera and started taking photos of the university's quad. The large trees had a wide array of fantastic colours painted on their leaves. The reds faded into brilliant oranges which held hints of pale yellow. The beauty of it all was astounding. Eren had only begun taking a few pictures when he heard a screechy voice holler his name. He turned around just in time to avoid being tackled by an overexcited brunette.
"You're Eren right? Its so nice to finally meet you! You're quite the looker eh. That explains it. " The brunette said all this in one breath.
"I'm sorry, who are you?" Eren asked.
"I'm Hanji Zoe, Levi's best friend, although he'd never admit it."
Eren stared at Hanji. Their wild brown eyes held unbridled excitement and just a hint of a fanatic gleam. "Hi," he said cautiously, "did you want to tell me something or..."
"Oh yeah I wanted to ask you something!"
"Okay..."
Hanji's face suddenly turned deadly serious, "What are your feelings for Levi?"
Eren spluttered in embarrassment, "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean Eren, what are your intentions?" Hanji's fanatic gleam suddenly seemed more cynical, dangerous even. Eren felt an extreme sense of déjà vu.
"I've seen you before, but you were different," Eren's eyes gleamed over as he struggled to grasp the fleeting memory that passed through his mind, "Where have I seen you?" Just like that the memory was gone, Eren felt a shiver roll down his spine as a splitting headache seized him.
Hanji stared at him through their oversized glasses, "Perhaps you know more than I thought, Even now you continue to surprise me Jaeger." Their face split into a large grin and they cackled loudly, " Wait till Erwin hears about this!" And just like that, they were gone.
Eren frowned, head still throbbing, "What the hell was that about?" He looked down at his watch and grimaced, it was 11:05, he was supposed to be meeting Mikasa and Armin for lunch at 11:20. He had 20 minutes to get all the way to Survey Coffee and Books. before Mikasa would start hunting him down. He shut off his camera and started off in the direction of the store praying that he wouldn't be too late.
....
He showed up 10 minutes late. He jogged into the shop breathless after sprinting all the way to the shop. As soon as he walked in he saw Mikasa at a table in the small coffee shop in the back of the homely bookstore.
"Where were you," Mikasa asked as soon as he reached her, "We said 11:20 not 11:30."
"Sorry, I got distracted taking pictures." Eren decided not to tell her about his strange encounter with Hanji.
"Hmm," Mikasa scoffed clearly not impressed with his answer,"its obvious that you are leaving something out. What else happened?"
Just at that moment Armin sat down with a tower of books in his arms. Eren swore he was like some kind of guardian angel. Somehow he always had perfect timing. If he wasn't like his brother, Eren probably would've married the blonde coconut.
"Hey Armin, what books have you got there?"
Armin glared at Eren suspiciously, "What did you do?"
"Yes Eren answer my question? What were you doing?" Mikasa smirked at her brother.
Eren retracted his previous statement, Armin was no guardian angel. "Fine," he sighed defeated, "I ran into one of Levi's friends and I was talking to them."
Mikasa glared, "You're still hanging out with that stupid little troll?"
"I wasn't even hanging out with him, and he's not a troll! What's your problem with him anyway?"
"There's something off about him, I know he's gonna hurt you somehow. I don't trust him."
"He's not gonna hurt me, Mikasa. He's a good person."
"Anyway which one of his friends did you meet?" Armin asked.
"Hanji," Eren said, " do either of you know them?"
Armin frowned, "the name sounds familiar..." Armin's stomach growled loudly reminding them all why they were there in the first place.
"I'll go order our food," Eren said," What do you want?" After taking their orders and confirming them he started walking to the counter.
The man at the counter turned around and smiled at Eren before his blue eyes flashed with recognition.
"Commander Erwin?" Eren said with disbelief. For a second their setting changed. Commander Erwin stood in front of him in his crisp survey corps uniform. He stared Eren down with cold and calculating blue eyes. Eren felt like a hammer had hit his head. He blinked rapidly trying to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. His eyes couldn't seem to make up their mind flashing with strange pictures of Erwin in a uniform and as a barista in quick succession.
"Eren!" Erwin's voice sounded far off now yet somehow it sounded different, deeper. Erens vision began to fade and he heard a shrill ringing in his ears. It drowned out the sound of everyone's yells. He blinked rapidly as he felt himself falling.