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Heavy dark clouds fill the early morning sky blocking the light of the sun just to bring soft and scattered droplets of rain. Luckily, Eren had brought an umbrella today. Actually, his mother made him to, not accepting a no for an answer as he was trying to convince her that it would be a radiant day today and of course Mikasa joined the discussion taking his mother's side per usual.
Five minutes, it took him five precious minutes to finally give in and carry the bright yellow umbrella which he totally refuses to open, preferring to feel the gentle drizzling down on him, at least it helps him to wake him up. He groans, eyelids heavy when he tries to open them as it fullest, he hates mornings and he absolutely hates taking the damn train. But if he is lucky, certain someone will make his day brighter.
"Hurry, guys! I don't want to be late!" He says in a loud tone, getting rid of any sign of tiredness and hastening his pace, not looking back.
"He looks a little too excited for just going to school. Since when does he care for being late?" He hears Armin say behind him.
"Hey! Weren't you always bugging me for being late? I just want to be on time for Biology class."
"He is lying, he wants to-"
"Mikasa!" He yells to interrupt her before she can continue. “You promised not to tell!”
“Jeez, calm down. Come on, It’s Armin, he probably knows anyway.”
“Know what?” His childhood friend gives him a puzzle look as he scrunches his nose in an attempt to push his glasses back to their original position.
“Nothing, just… let’s keep going.”
“Ohh, are you talking about the blonde girl of the train?”
“Yes, exactly her.” Mikasa responds with a know-it-all smirk before both of his friends start bursting out with laughter.
“Can you two stop? Mikasa, you have definitely been spending too much time with horse face.”
“Ew,” he hears her say, before hiding her blushed face behind her bangs.
He doesn't have time to deny their words, he is more focused on getting to the subway train on time, so he rushes down the subway stairs to catch the train with speed as he tries not to slip on the wet floor. He watches as people file in and out, and bustle around on the platforms. They are going everywhere and it makes it harder for him to get to the train car.
Hoards of people from different directions pass by him as he hears the announcement of the doors closing, forcing his legs to go even faster. “Uh, e-excuse me, excuse me please.” He hears Armin murmurs behind him.
His backpack gets slammed against the wall several times and he is sure his hanging umbrella caused the fall of at least four people getting on and off the train. Eren exhales in relief for a short second when he finally makes it. He sees Mikasa pushing someone aside before entering, Armin running just right behind her.
The train immediately speeds on and the view of a crowd of people at the station gets behind. “I thought we were not gonna make it for a second there.” Armin comments before resting his back against the handrail.
Eren immediately began looking around for the girl he had been seeing on the train for almost a month now, his green eyes traveling not so discretely from different people trying to find her blonde hair. He could only see faceless strangers waiting to go to their destinations.
"Is she here?”
“I don’t think so, Mikasa. Maybe she got on the previous train.” Armin answers as he stands on his tiptoes to look for the blue-eye girl.
With his fidgeting feet and his hands grasping onto the straps of his backpack, Eren scans the train car one more time until he finally notices her from afar, his eyes settling on a familiar petite blonde head. For a moment Eren can’t breath, he is too busy admiring her elegant silhouette. Her face glows with the dim blue light of her screen phone as she scrolls on it, as if there were a luminous moonlight behind her eyes.
She looks prepared for the cold day ahead of her, unlike him. She is wearing a pink scarf and matching fluffy earmuffs, her umbrella is pink as well, a soft baby pink color that he saw Mikasa wearing on a hoodie once before she decided to change it for something that suited her style better, which means just something black. The girl was wearing an elegant coat over her uniform, she always looks so well dressed, her hair perfectly combed, always stealing glances from everyone around her.
“You should go talk to her.”
“Are you crazy, Mikasa?”
“Yeah, how crazy it is to say hi.”
“Please, you know it’s not that easy. Besides, she goes to that uptown private school, she would not even look at me.”
“How do you know where she goes?”
“I googled her uniform.”
“Wow, you are on full stalker mode aren’t you?”
“Oh, shut up.” The train briefly slows to a stop and in a few seconds is almost empty, the door closes behind him and Eren slightly moves his head towards the blonde girl again, she is looking at her surroundings with sharp eyes, her phone forgotten on her hands as she offers a polite smile to the strangers. God, she is gorgeous. “I mean, I could, but like not today, I- I need to practice first.”
And suddenly, their eyes meet.
His cheeks heat up before he can turn his head, Eren curses on his mind for feeling this flutter in his stomach, he was never this nervous around girls before, well he never had been interested in someone before. She is just too perfect, like straight out of a dream.
“Fuck, is she looking?”
“Nope,” Armin whispers.
Eren looks up and there she is, way closer than she was before. She is standing up straight as she fixes her skirt in place, her pink lips stretching forming a shy smile, never breaking eye contact.
“You guys are the worst.”
“You’re welcome.” He feels a hand on his back before being pushed.
He stumbles, his feet tripping over each other as he tries to regain his balance until he reaches a metal pole in the middle.
“You okay there?” Ahh… of course, she has the voice of an angel.
Eren stepped back immediately, putting his hands in his pockets as if nothing had happened. He clears his voice twice before he speaks. “Uh, yeah, yeah. Just umm, you know how people are, always pushing.” He turns around to see Armin and Mikasa watching the scene with a devilish grin of approval.
The young girl blinks slowly before approaching towards him, one of her hands playing with her long hair. “It always gets like this at rush hour.”
She is forced to look up since he is not much taller than her and Eren realizes she has the most intense sparkling eyes which complements the sweetest smile he has ever seen.
“Tell me about it. At least it is not that packed anymore.”
She takes a few steps closer leaving a cloud of a fruity scent around her smaller frame, their arms almost touch with her proximity. “Luckily I'm a few stops away so the morning suffering is almost over.”
“Just wait until the afternoon suffering.”
She giggles and his heart skips a beat. He has never seen her up to this close before, he was used to admiring her from afar spending the entire ride mesmerized by her. Now she is too close, too real. He can even see how her lashes flutter over her eyes as she maintains her gaze on him. Eren swallows. He wants to keep making her smile like that.
He feels a little bit dumb really, he has never had a crush this intense, he has never had a crush at all! Okay, maybe when he was a little innocent child who was head over heels for that deodorant commercial lady, but c'mon… he was only four! So all of this is entirely new for him, all these feelings and shit.. He isn’t used to this. Is it normal to sweat like this? Should he go to the ER? Because there’s definitely something moving around in his stomach, and it's so fucking hard to breathe… sometimes air does not come at all!
But he can't keep doing this, he just can't stare at her until a miracle happens and she talks to him, he needs to find the courage somewhere to start a conversation, maybe they could even become train buddies. He just needs to be brave-
"So, what's your name?"
“Me?” Eren asks almost in shock. One thing is to be polite enough to ask someone how they are and yeah, maybe they can exchange a few words to contribute to the small talk. Could she be really interested? Is he dreaming again? Has he really fallen this hard for this girl?
“Uh yes, you. Your name.”
“Oh.” Okay, he has always been aware that his conversational skills are awful, but he never thought it would be this disastrous. He runs his hand through his hair to try to hide the embarrassment. “Eren, Eren Jaeger.”
“Nice to meet you, Eren Jaeger.” She flashes that bright smile of hers once again and that damn smile is killing him… in a good way, in the best of ways.
“Yes, likewise. Oh! Your name! Uh, what’s your name?”
“Historia Reiss.”
“It’s a beautiful name, it really suits you.”
The blush on her face comes immediately. “Thank you,” she says in a tiny voice as she tucks her hair behind her ear. For some reason she is really interested in watching their feets right now. “Uh, I have to get off at the next stop.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” he moves aside so she has access to the door. “It was nice meeting you, Historia.”
She nods as she steps forward, their arms brush and even if it’s not a direct contact, he still shivers. “See you around I guess.”
It sucks. He will not see her again until Monday if he is lucky. They don’t leave school at the same time as he has noticed that they haven't crossed paths in the afternoon. There are some unfortunate times when he doesn’t see her at the train, those are the shitty morning rides.
“Maybe, maybe we could exchange numbers? To make sure we take the same train, I don’t know, so we can suffer a little less together. Because I really liked hearing you talk, I mean not hearing you, not that you don’t have a beautiful voice, you do, you really do. I just, I think it was nice talking to you… like a mutual conversation, yeah.”
Fuck him.
“I would like that.” She answers a little too fast, a little too eager.
Quickly, she takes a pen out of her bag and without asking him, she takes his right hand on hers. He doesn’t feel the inked numbers being written against his palm. Everything around him seemed to slowly fade away by the electrifying contact of her skin on his sending a chill to his entire body. It wasn’t strong enough for him to pull away, it actually feels like the gentlest and delicate touch, yet it feels paralyzing, almost hypnotizing.
He fights against his impulse to hold her tiny hand and compare lengths with each other, he is one hundred percent sure that he beats her by half of of his fingers
His heartbeat quickens against his chest and the heat rises to his cheeks when a new smile grows on her pink lips. Without taking her green eyes off Historia, he traces his finger against the soft skin of her hand.
“You better not wash your hand.”
“I wasn’t planning to."
He expects Historia to pull away when the train announces the next stop, but they let the moment stretch to the fullest.
“I’ll see you again on Monday then?”
“Of course, I wouldn't miss it for the world.”
He really can’t wait.