Chapter Text
Eren Jaeger has been working at Trost High School for around 3 years now. He began his teaching career there as a physical education teacher. Teaching was his first full-time job, not covering for anyone, not being a backup teacher either. Before he worked part-time in a café to help pay for his studies. His first year teaching was the hardest, but now he felt like the difficult kept altering with the easy and new ones kept coming. Life kept flowing like a river picking up speed around the rocks. To Eren, it felt like over the years he’s only gained the disapproval from the hottest teacher in school, the literary arts teacher, Levi Ackerman. Levi would always tease Eren about everything he could find. The biggest one was that his teaching style would get the kids nowhere. Eren was working hard and putting lots of effort into his class but it was like nothing ever impressed Mr. Ackerman. Eren began to notice that whenever Levi came into the gym while he was teaching his class there was always this group of students that were holding in their laughter. Later, Eren began to see that as a game and began to tease Levi back on the way he taught and anything else he could come up with. The students seemed to really enjoy it. When Levi had his lunchtime, he would go into Eren's classroom and complain about how unclean it was. Eren tried to do the same but he never had good comebacks like Levi. After all, Levi's classroom was never messy so it was hard to find things to criticize.
One afternoon, when Eren was finishing up he found Levi's jacket in the staff room, he figured he must have forgotten it there. He decided to keep it to return it to him after the bell just in case the janitor would take it. Once the bell rang, Eren gathered all his possessions and checked the change rooms in case anyone left anything, just like he always did. After that, he went upstairs to Levi's classroom and saw that the door was closed. He thought that maybe he was just staying after school or something and knocked on the door. "Come in," came a voice from inside the room. The brunette knew only Levi had that voice and he turned the doorknob stepping inside, leaving the door wide open as he proceeded through the empty classroom to Levi's desk. "Shut the door, brat," Levi mumbled while he was writing something, not even needing to look up.
"S-Sorry...," that tone of voice coming from Levi always made shivers run up the back of Eren’s neck. He quickly went back to the door and closed it gently, making sure it wasn't too loud. Once he turned back around towards Levi, Levi was already looking at him."…You left your jacket in the staff room," Eren said after a pause with a little smile and handed it to Levi. Levi took the jacket and looked over it as if something was wrong. Eren gave him a questioning look.
"I see you touched it with your filthy-sweaty hands." Levi gave him a playful glare. Eren felt sudden relief from the anxiety in his chest that built up from just coming there, he thought he had actually done something wrong. He chuckled lightly while cocking his head to the side. With a slight grin, he slipped his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. Levi threw the jacket over his chair and continued writing. Eren had nowhere to rush today so he sat on top of the nearest desk and watched the other in silence.
"You need something?" Levi didn't take his eyes off the paper, it looked like he was marking tests.
“Ah- No..." Eren answered a little nervously being broken out of his thoughts like this. "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow." He got up and quickly went out the door. Eren always got a little awkward when he was alone in a room with Mr. Ackerman. It kind of freaked him out. Not because he was scared of him, but his self-esteem was a bit low around Levi. It was that feeling as if Levi was his boss and he had to impress him to get better pay.
Eren went home thinking about the situation that happened that day. He nearly forgot about everything else he had to do; the new workout plans for his students, the plans he had for himself. His mind was clouded with Levi as he walked home nearly unconsciously. He thought that he was in a room with him before but never this weird where the air was dense and filled with tension. Or maybe all the previous times were just as weird but he couldn’t remember them anymore. He wondered if he would forget this time too. He never really got this close to Levi before. But touching his coat wasn’t really physical contact, yet to Eren, there was something intimate about it even though Levi brushed it off as a joke. At least that’s what Eren thought he was doing. He wondered if Levi was thinking about their encounter too. But he could never imagine Levi being in that position. Eren sometimes wondered if he had any thoughts going on at all about feelings or if they were just robotic words.
Eren was drastically woken out of his thoughts when he nearly walked into a lamp post and apologized to it, soon realizing it wasn’t a person. Since then he quickly went home keeping his mind strict on his daily schedule. He went along his day normally as any other day, not being deep in the clouds with his thoughts. But as bedtime came, he was lying awake in bed with all the lights turned off. He was thinking about the embarrassments of that day. Levi Ackerman was on his mind again. He tossed and turned for what seemed like an eternity. He never really had this much trouble falling asleep before. Except for maybe really important events, such as a new job interview he really wanted. He fell asleep not knowing when, but he knew it must have been late as the next day he was messier than usual.