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with a dreary sigh, you lean back against one of the stands, palms flat against the wood as you balance your weight.
“you’re not being very festive.” you hear a teasing chide from beside you, followed by a playful elbow to your ribs causing you to flinch. flickering your gaze over to the perpetrator, your eyes fall on your coworker, sasha, and you struggle to maintain your composure due to her current attire.
adorning probably one of the ugliest christmas jumpers you had ever seen in your life, accompanied by various strands of tinsel in her hair and tightened around her ponytail, it was safe to say that she was correct - you weren’t very festive at all.
the most you had done to even embody the festive season in the slightest was to reluctantly clip a red bow in your hair, after unfortunately being cornered by sasha and eren before the beginning of your shift.
with a shrug, you rhythmically tap your fingers along the surface, “maybe i’d be more festive if i wasn’t stuck here. it’s like people actually get stupider just before christmas. i can’t cope.”
sasha lets out an energetic chuckle, beginning to fish in her pocket for something, eventually retrieving one of the chocolates from the shared box in the staff room. “oh, come on. you’re just being dramatic because you’re a grinch.” she teases once more, the crinkling of the wrapper catching your attention as she pops the chocolate into her mouth, her other hand residing on her hip.
“am not.” you protest with a hint of a pout on your lips, before sighing, “all we’ve had today are men who are panic buying for their girlfriends last minute and expect me to know what she likes and what she wants. y’know, if i made a quid for every time i’ve been asked ‘what do you think my girlfriend’ll like?’ today, i wouldn’t need this j-”
“excuse me.” a clear of someone’s throat beside you quickly cuts you off, causing you to quickly blink. whipping round to the owner of the voice, you’re met with a middle aged woman, late 40s at least. just registering her face for a moment, you immediately recognise that she will find a way to complain no matter what you do.
glancing back at sasha for a moment, you groan internally as you notice she had practically made a run for it, now being on the other side of the store. she hated annoying customers as much as you, yet always decided to leave them to you as if you were always magically able to fix their problems. (spoiler alert: you weren’t.)
with a half-assed smile, you attempt to shake off your hatred from your interrupted rant, trying to switch back to your customer service mindset. “sorry about that, ma’am. is everything okay?”
eyeing you warily, she scoffs, rummaging in her bag for her phone wordlessly. all you can do is stand there awkwardly as she harshly taps at the screen with a single finger, cursing under her breath about ‘stupid technology’. eventually, she finds what she’s looking for, immediately crowding the phone into your face. “i need this.” she demands.
you pause, squinting slightly at the sudden obstruction of your view, before craning your body back to actually be able to see the phone. your gaze falls upon what you immediately recognise as the store’s website, alongside the best selling perfume that you had literally just sold out of.
mentally sighing, as well as preparing yourself for the onslaught you were about to receive, you manage to weakly plaster the smile back onto your face. “i’m so sorry, but we just sold the last one a couple of minutes ago.” you internally cringe, noticing the immediate frustration etched onto her face. “it says you have it in stock here online. don’t lie to me.” she spits bluntly, beginning to shove the phone back into your face. focusing your vision once more, you notice the big ‘SOLD OUT’ printed in red beneath the item on the screen, and you try your best not to lose your composure.
gesturing for her to return the screen back to herself, you fraily point towards the detail you just noticed, “if you just look there, it does say that we’re out of stock. i’m really sorry. if you want, i can direct you to something similar-”
“no.” she cuts you off once more, quickly folding her arms across her chest defensively. “are you calling me a liar? it said you had it in stock this morning.”
your jaw falls slack at the contradiction. so she’d just easily called you a liar, yet, it’s unacceptable when the roles are reversed??
“no, ma’am not at all. we did have it in stock this morning.” you explain, fighting the urge to explain it like she’s a toddler, because that’s what she was acting like, “it is just the fact that it is christmas eve, and that is an extremely popular perfume. if anything, i’m surprised we still had some in stock this late.”
“can’t you just go and check in the back? and hurry up, i don’t have all day.” she bites back, beginning to tap her foot against the linen of the floor.
with an inaudible exhale, you nod in defeat, “of course.” you quickly turn on your heels, wanting to get out of the situation as quickly as possible. walking towards the door at the back of the store, you try not to feel her gaze piercing into you, watching your every move intently before you can step into the safety of the stock room.
closing the door behind you, a large sigh escapes your lips, and you routinely begin to pace up and down one of the aisles, despite knowing you weren’t going to find anything. what was the point?
“what are you doing?” a laugh from beside you causes you to stop, leaning back so your back can press against one of the shelves.
maybe it wasn’t so safe in the back after all.
your gaze falls to eren as he stands a few feet away from you despite the freezing temperatures outside, he still decided to wear a t-shirt for some reason, yet you’re not complaining as it gives you free access to the lean muscles he typically buried beneath fabrics. leaning his left forearm against one of the shelves in front of you, his head lolls to the side to rest against it, a few strands of hair that slipped from behind his ears obscuring his vision.
an eyebrow raises at you as he gestures his finger side to side, mimicking your previous pacing.
“some woman asked for that perfume we just sold out of, demanded i go to the back because she thinks i can magic one up.” you shrug, reaching for your phone in your pocket, using the screen to distract yourself from the sight of him. you knew for a fact that if you stared at him for even a millisecond too long, you wouldn’t hear the end of it for ‘checking him out.’
“and that means you need to pace up and down because…?” you can practically hear the smirk on his lips, yet you completely ignore it.
“gotta act like i’ve actually been looking for it. make myself out of breath, always works.” eyes glued to your screen, you almost don’t notice the way he steps closer to you, until the overwhelming scent of his cologne invades your personal space.
after hesitating for a moment, you cautiously bring your gaze up to his, furrowing your eyebrows in confusion before he speaks first, “mistletoe.” he grins, and you stare at him dumbfoundedly, before glancing up at his hand positioned above the two of you, a small wad of mistletoe nestled between his pinched fingers. attempting to take a step back, you’re quickly met with the cold metal of the shelf behind you.
with a groan, you squint up at him, “why do you just have that on you? hoping to catch me in here on my own or something? weirdo.”
grin widening, he shrugs, bringing his face closer to yours, lightly bumping your nose against his. “something like that.” he breathes against your parted lips, a final attempt to provide you with the oxygen he was about to restrict.
before you can say anything, his face leans impossibly closer to yours, and you almost shudder at the contact. lips grazing gently against yours, his free hand softly glides up your neck, cradling the skin. with his thumb dangerously close to your pulse point, you silently pray he can’t feel the tremendous pace in which your heart was pounding. yet, the breathless chuckle that escapes his own lips tells you everything you need to know.
finally, his lips meet yours.
he’s initially gentler than you first imagined him to be, hand on your neck carefully adjusting your position to deepen the kiss. his hand holding the damned plant eventually falls to his side, quickly finding its home on the opposite side of your neck as he holds you so tenderly, like you’d disappear if he let you go for just a moment.
he tastes like vanilla, accompanied with a hint of one of the chocolates in the staff room you guessed he’d just eaten, yet his cologne clouds your senses, overpowering any other distinct taste you had of him.
hands instinctively moving to stabilise yourself by grasping at his shoulders, your fingers graze against the lines of ink adorning his skin, an artistic interpretation of his character as a whole. he smiles softly against your lips, the soft exhale he responds with at the contact not going unnoticed by you. he leans closer to you, chests practically pressing against each other as he almost melts against you.
bringing his hand to rest against your nape, your hair slips through the webs of his fingers, tickling his skin. after brief hesitation, he lingers his tongue against your bottom lip in a silent plea to let him continue - which you accept with a slight nod. at the feeling of the gesture, a cold metal brushes against your tongue, reminding you that he’d recently gotten his tongue pierced. not that you could forget, it’s all he ever talked about recently.
so entranced with him as he completely overcrowds your senses, you barely hear the opening of the stock room door, yet a loud gasp brings you back to reality. immediately pulling away from him, your hands remain residing on his shoulders as his hands continue to cradle your face. as if in sync, you both whip round to whoever had interrupted the moment, and you both catch sight of sasha at the same time.
the next few moments are tense and silent, the three of you staring at each other in an attempt to process what had just happened.
she gasps again, dropping the empty box in her hand as she slaps her palm over her mouth. “holy shit.” she mutters, and you brace yourself for whatever she was about to say next.
“jean fucking owes me!!” she cheers, a grin quickly spreading onto her lips, “i knew it would be today!” turning on her heels, she practically bolts out of the door, leaving both you and eren in each other’s arms as you sheepishly glance at each other out the corner of your eye.
with an awkward chuckle, you’re the first to break the silence, “i’m gonna.. go.” you mutter, attempting to step over his legs that practically caged you beneath him. “i have a customer to.. talk to.”
blinking himself awake, he stumbles backwards, clearing his throat. “uh, yeah.” he mumbles, looking down at the floor like a puppy that had just been caught ripping up the pillows on the sofa. an uncharacteristic hint of embarrassment radiates from him, yet he quickly masks it as you begin to walk away, and he notices the slight labour in your breathing.
“guess you don’t need to do too much to fake being out of breath now, huh?” he teases.
pausing in your tracks, you glance over your shoulder at him, “what? you want me to let you know every time i’m back here so you can do it for me?”
if it was even possible, his grin grows even wider, “gladly.”
you scoff at his childishness, quickly darting your gaze from his, not allowing him to see the impact he was having on you. “whatever.” you mutter, furrowing your eyebrows as you open the door.
“nice bow, by the way.” he jeers playfully, and all you can do is flip him off as you step back onto the shop floor, grateful at being able to breathe again.
safe to say, you forgot why you even went back there in the first place.