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Never before had he cursed Jean Kirschtein more in his life.
Normally, Eren hated being up this early, but a switched shift with Jean (the bastard owed him big-time for letting him take his 8-4 shift so he could spend time with Marco before he went on vacation) meant he was rolling out of bed as the sun was rising, and he groaned very loudly. Eren was not a morning person. He preferred staying up into the early hours of the morning after coming home from his job at the pet store and then sleeping until at least noon, or as late as Mikasa would let him before pouring water on him and telling him to get his lazy ass up.
Luckily for him, she’d been away for a boxing tournament for the past week and a half, so his sleeping habits had been without consequence. He’d been enjoying his uninterrupted sleep until he agreed to take Jean’s shift, which caused him to stay up as late as he normally did, not really thinking that he would have to work with customers on two hours of sleep. Eren groaned as he walked from his bedroom to the kitchen, turning on the coffee pot and hoping that he could survive the shift through sheer caffeine intake alone. Since it was only about six in the morning, he forwent turning on his television, hating watching the morning news more than anything else in the world. He leaned against the kitchen counter, waiting for his coffee to be brewed, before grabbing his favorite mug and taking his drink over to the kitchen table. Even though she wasn’t here, Mikasa would have killed him for bringing the drink on their newly-bought couch, and he didn’t want her to come back to find out he’d spilled something on it. Reclining (more like collapsing) into his chair, he looked out his kitchen window as the sun started to peak over the horizon.
He was still relatively new to the area, after all. He and Mikasa had finally saved up enough money on her income as a boxer and his measly earnings from the pet store (“I’m finding a new job soon, don’t worry” he would tell Mikasa, feeling bad about the bills) for them to move from their shitty apartment in the city to a less shitty, two-bedroom house in a suburb close by. They were renting it from one of Mikasa’s colleague’s parents, and the place was a step up from what they had been living in before, that’s for sure. Even though they had been there for about three months, boxes still framed the various rooms, signs of Eren’s laziness in unpacking and Mikasa’s busy schedule with her job. It would get done eventually, Eren was sure. He wasn’t in any rush, especially this morning.
The neighborhood was nice, after all. He hadn’t really met many of his neighbors, more keen to keep to himself if he could, but the lady next door seemed nice. Her name was Petra, and she was a sweet little blond who had offered to help them move in when they had first arrived. She lived alone and had a cute little dog named Cocoa who was pretty fond of Eren. Occasionally, Eren would see her working in her garden when he left for his job or to hang out at Armin’s, and she was nothing but sweet to him.
Eren looked over at her house, wondering if she was up at this time. He saw a light on in her place, and Eren wasn’t that surprised. She seemed like the type of person who would be up at this ungodly hour, chipper and ready to start her day. But as he looked at her house, he saw someone he had never seen before coming out of her front door. The figure was pretty short, and he would have mistaken it for Petra if it wasn’t for the fact they were dressed in all black like a robber and dragging poor Cocoa behind them. Eren leapt up to his feet, the chair screeching against the tiled floor behind him. He watched the figure struggle with Cocoa, who was trying to fight to get away from the person and go back into Petra’s house. He was witnessing a dog-napping, Eren realized, and it took him a second before he was running to his front door to save his sweet neighbor’s dog.
Rushing out the front door, Eren ran the short distance to Petra’s house, yelling at the person trying to steal Cocoa. “Hey! Stop right there! What the fuck are you doing?” he screamed, getting the person’s attention. The man, Eren could now see, stopped his attempts of dragging Cocoa to stare at him.
“Excuse me?” the man said, looking at Eren with an annoyed expression. Eren could see Cocoa had stopped struggling behind the man, interested in Eren’s arrival. “What the fuck am I doing? I should be asking you the same thing, as well as who the fuck you are.”
Not expecting such a violent response from the dog-napper, Eren stopped in his tracks. “I’m Petra’s neighbor and you’re clearly stealing her dog!” he shot back.
The man scoffed. “Stealing her dog? You dipshit, she’s away at a conference and I’m here to walk her mutt. I’ve been walking her dog for the past three days.”
Eren stared at the man, dumbfounded. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh’ is right. Now if you’d excuse me, I would like to get this over with so I can go on with my life and not have to deal with shitty brats thinking I’m stealing dogs.” The man tugged on Cocoa’s leash, finally getting the dog to follow along with him. He passed Petra’s gate, starting to head down the street. Eren started, calling after the man.
“Wait, mister!” he began to follow him before realizing he was still in his pajamas, and didn’t feel like giving everyone a fashion show (he’d never admit he was embarrassed of his pajamas that Armin had bought him—with little tiny bunnies on it because he thought they were cute—but the man he’d just accused of dognapping was pretty intimidating and he knew his appearance was anything but intimidating). The man turned around, sighing.
“What do you want, kid?” he said, holding the leash taut as Cocoa went to sniff a patch of grass.
“Sorry for calling you a dognapper…” Eren trailed off, not really sure what to say.
“It’s whatever, kid. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to finish walking this dog before someone thinks I’m stealing Petra’s house as well.” With that, he turned around and continued down the street. Flushed with embarrassment, Eren went back inside, leaning against the door after he closed it. He fucked up, damn. How could he think that someone was trying to steal Petra’s dog? Stupid Eren.
Shaking his head, he glanced at the clock, seeing that he had about an hour until he was supposed to be at work. Cursing, he ran to the bathroom to take a quick shower before heading out the door. Luckily enough, he didn’t see the man or Cocoa when driving to the pet store, saving himself from any more embarrassment that he could have been faced with.
At least, he thought so.
Clocking in at 7:50am, Eren said hello to Hanji, the store’s very eccentric owner. They were very nice, yes, but also very loud, and Eren wasn’t used to dealing with their bubbling personality so early in the morning. Putting on his nametag, Eren headed to the cash registers, hoping he wouldn’t have many costumers so early in the morning. He nodded hello to Sasha and Connie, the two other workers there, who both looked as sleepy as he felt.
His shift started off with relatively no problems. Business was slow in the morning, just a few people here and there buying pet toys or picking up beta fish. Nothing too hard to deal with. Around 10:30, however, Eren was startled when he heard Hanji let out a giant scream, followed by them running from the back of the store to tackle the customer who had just walked in. Seeing no one waiting to ring up, Eren rushed the short distance to Hanji, unsure of what was happening. When he got to them, however, he didn’t expect to see them squeezing someone to death in what looked like the most uncomfortable hug Eren had ever witnessed.
“Get the fuck off of me, four-eyes,” the person yelled from Hanji’s chest. Eren’s eyes widened, recognizing the muffled voice as the person he had encountered at Petra’s. This cannot be happening to me, Eren thought, trying to back away from the exchange before being spotted. It would have worked well, too, if the man hadn’t chosen that exact moment to free himself from Hanji’s grasp, pushing her off of him with a huff. “I swear to God, it’s like you haven’t seen me in a year. Why do you have to attack me every time I come by?” the man grumbled, straightening out his clothes. He had shed his earlier outfit, changing into what looked to be a more white-collared work attire. Eren tried to stop staring, slowly stepping back in an attempt to run back to his register and hope the man didn’t come through his line.
He wasn’t able to get very far, however, once Hanji noticed his appearance. They laughed, slapping Levi on the back. “Don’t worry, Eren, he’s a friend. I appreciate your concern but you can head back to the register.” At this, the man looked over at him, his grey eyes widening.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said, looking between Eren and Hanji.
Hanji looked over at the man, tilting their head with a questioning look on their face. “Do you know Eren, Levi?”
The man, Levi, scoffed, crossing his arms. “This brat accused me of stealing Petra’s dog this morning.”
“How was I supposed to know you weren’t stealing her?” Eren yelled out indignantly, a blush spreading across his face. “Sorry for being concerned about Cocoa, all right?”
Hanji looked at Eren, surprised. “You know Petra, Eren?” they asked.
Eren nodded, the blush lessening as the subject was sort of dropped. “I moved next door to her a few months ago,” he replied, trying to keep his eyes on Hanji.
“That explains it!” Hanji exclaimed. “Petra had mentioned a cutie moving next door to her. Of course she had to have meant you. Isn’t that right, Levi?” they said, elbowing the shorter man in the side. The man glared at them, removing their elbow from his side.
“Why the fuck would you ask me, shitty four-eyes?” he retorted. “I don’t have any interest in kids who accuse me of dognapping.”
“Hey, I apologized! And I’m not a kid,” Eren protested, feeling anger bubbling up inside of him. He gets that he made a mistake, yeah, but the guy was an asshole for constantly bringing it up. He’d apologized and there wasn’t much else he could do.
Hanji laughed as the two argued on. To be honest, they had considered introducing the two of them before, but they hadn’t expected the two to have any chance encounters. Levi was one of their good friends, and Eren was a very hard worker who was pretty on the eyes. They thought the potential of a relationship was more than likely to bloom, and the two had saved Hanji the worries of getting them acquainted.
“Now, now, Levi, stop poking fun at my dear Eren,” Hanji said, bringing Eren under their arm. Eren tensed up, looking up at Hanji with a questioning look, his sentence trailing off. “This boy is really great once you get to know him, and I’m sure any comments he may have made can be easily forgiven.”
“I’m not planning on getting to know him, Hanji,” Levi retorted. “All I was planning on doing was coming here to get some food for Petra’s dog, and you’re making me late for a meeting with Erwin. Now if you’d excuse me, I’d like to be on my way.”
Eren wiggled his way out of Hanji’s grasp. “Wait, Levi,” he said, causing the other man to turn around. “I’m sorry about earlier. I wasn’t really thinking clearly but I thought Cocoa was in trouble and didn’t want to see anything bad happen to Petra,” he said quietly, looking at the ground. Levi’s glare softened a bit, and he sighed before turning around.
“It’s fine, kid. I’m glad she’s got someone looking out for her, even if they aren’t the brightest.”
“Hey!” Eren yelled out, with Hanji laughing besides him.
“That’s the closest to a compliment you’ll come from him, trust me,” they said, walking back to where they were sorting dog toys. “I think you have some customers waiting to check out,” they called to Eren.
“Shit,” he whispered, heading to his register. He quickly checked out a couple and their daughter before closing his eyes and hitting his head against the counter. This morning has been quite a disaster, and he was ready to go home and forget all about it.
“If you keep doing that, you’re going to lose the rest of your brain cells, you know.” Eren’s head shot up as he saw Levi in his line, placing a thing of dog food on the counter. “Calm down, brat. I’m not mad at you.”
Eren groaned, grabbing the food and scanning it. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t switched shifts,” he told Levi, putting the food in a bag.
“I was going to say, this was the first time I’d seen you here,” Levi observed.
Eren nodded. “I normally work the evenings, but the other cashier wanted to spend time with his boyfriend before going on vacation and I was stupid enough to agree to switch.”
“That was a nice thing to do.”
“For him, maybe. I regretted it the moment I got up.”
“Sometimes we make decisions we regret, kid. Like running outside trying to save your neighbor’s dog who isn’t in any harm,” he said, a smirk on his face.
“I’m never going to live that down, am I,” Eren said, his face turning red at the teasing.
“No, you’re not. But if you’d like to make it up to me, you could come over to Petra’s around six tonight and help me give Cocoa a bath. I absolutely despise wet dogs,” Levi continued, looking at Eren. The boy’s eyes widened, not expecting that to be something Levi would ask.
“Sure,” he stammered, “I’ll help you.”
Levi graced him with a small smile, handing him cash for the food before grabbing the bag. “It’s a date.” Giving him a slight wave, Eren stared at Levi as he left the store, knowing he’d heard the man right.
Maybe switching shifts with Jean wasn’t the worst thing after all, he thought, beginning his countdown to 6.