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"So you got a girl back home, or something?"
The question came out of silence, unprompted. It took Eren a moment to look up from his cooling soup and realize that it was Oluo who had spoken, then another to realize what he'd asked. He was glad he wasn't actively attempting to eat, as he would've undoubtedly begun choking.
"Excuse me?" He asked, making sure he'd heard him right.
"A girl, a girlfriend? Like that tough girl at your hearing. Misaka?"
"Mikasa. She's basically my sister, so no. And no to everything else," he answered, probably with more malice than what was necessary. He told himself it was just because he was annoyed with Oluo for bringing up something as trivial as dating, when they were supposed to be locked in the game of slaying titans. That was the reason.
"Just saying, young man like you, strong, brave, not too rough on the eyes. I'd have assumed you were a heartbreaker," Oluo continued, with a careless slosh of his glass.
"No, nothing like that," Eren corrected quickly. That last line activated something in him. He was suddenly very angry with Oluo. Did he really think he was so immature that he was distracted by juvenile romantic fantasies? Eren was no heartthrob; he couldn't afford to be.
"Leave the kid alone! It's not like he wants to talk romance with a couple of old geezers," Gunther interjected.
"Speak for yourselves," corrected Petra humorously, casting a quick glance at Levi. If he returned it, Eren couldn't tell.
"Come on," Oluo implored, attempting to convince Eren to let slip any information that would justify his previous comments, "Wasn't there anyone who caught your eye back home?"
There it was. The million dollar question. One that Eren was well-prepared to lie in the million dollar face of.
"No."
Later, as he was winding down for the night, he heard voices from outside his window. He moved swiftly from the edge of his bed to the outskirts of the glass, a task made incredibly simple by how small his living quarters were. Since his arrival, he'd spent his short nights and, very rare, breaks in a two by two meter holding cell overlooking absolutely nothing because it was underground. He looked to his left: gray. To his right: bloodier gray. The only nice thing about the cell was a tiny, thick window in its the upper left corner, which Eren utilized to tick away the minutes until it was time for him to yet again be bullied by Levi, or prodded by Hange. Despite all the shortcomings, he was grateful that his prison was here, and not back under the courtroom. That, and how, during her last visit, Hange'd managed to crack the window open some, reasoning that he needed a soft breeze to cut through the harsh summer humidity.
Oluo and Gunther, in theory on night watch, were positioned against a wall adjacent to his room. Eren didn't understand why until he picked up on the distinct smell of cigar smoke. Military personnel were expressly forbidden from smoking on the job, in case of accidental arson, but that had never stopped members of Shiganshina's garrison regiment, and it looked like that didn't stop the scouts either.
"…just trying to make small talk. I thought that Rico mentioned something about him and that girl." Eren could make out Oluo's husky voice. Was he talking about him?
"Yeah, I know. I was there." Gunther responded, sounding mildly exasperated.
"Those kinds of connections. They're dangerous nowadays. Especially in our line of work."
"You're preaching to the choir here."
"I'm walking you through my thought process." Eren heard a slight shuffle that indicated perturbed arm movement. From Gunther, he presumed. "That kid's our responsibility. We have to teach him how things work around here." Definitely about him.
"I guess you have a point there," Gunther conceded.
"Besides, you saw the way he looked when I asked him. Completely exposed." Eren was offended at this. He'd thought covered quite well.
"I'm not saying you're not right. I'm saying you should leave him alone. It's like what you said. Things are different now. Even from when you and I were growing up. We at least had some semblance of normalcy. Hell, my village used to have dances. Kids just don't get to be kids anymore."
"Yeah. You can say that again."
"If there is a girl, he's probably never going to get the chance to act on those feelings. So, don't remind him, okay?" There was a pause. Eren didn't know how, but he could picture the way their faces looked. Mirroring the careful empathy they'd shown to Hange following Sonny and Bean's murder.
"Fine," Oluo sighed at last.
"And who knows? Maybe there's not a girl. Maybe he doesn't even swing that way."
Suddenly, Eren heard sharp footsteps coming down the hall. He carefully threw himself away from the window, and onto his bed. The footsteps belonged to a furrowed, emblematic soldier, whose main responsibility was locking Eren up for the night. The man knocked firmly on the bars of his enclosure, as if his obnoxious clomping hadn't already alerted all titans, or semi-titans in Eren's case, to his position. He had a tall frame, along with one of those universal faces. The kind that Eren could always swear he'd seen before. He stepped inside.
"Bed time, Yeager," he grunted facetiously, and bent over to attach the bedside handcuffs to each of Eren's wrists. It had only been a week or two since his titanic abilities were discovered, but he'd already grown disturbingly used to sleeping in chains. The tall man triple-checked that his cuffs were fastened securely. Then, he walked back into the dark corridor, locking the door behind him. An appropriate tamer for such a horrendous beast. Stop it, he told himself. You mustn't think that way. He knew who wouldn't let him think that way. But they were back with the other cadets, hopefully not making the same choice Eren had. If it were up to Eren, he'd rather never see them again, than see them bled out in front of him.
Eren craned his neck in an effort to listen in on Oluo and Gunther's conversation once more. He couldn't really make anything out, and from what he could, he gathered that they had moved on to a less "Yeager-specific" topic.
Eren didn't get much sleep that night.