MorningWood

Chapter 6 - Part 1

T/W and tags: jealousy, cunnilingus, BDSM, and knife play.
I did not originally intend it to be so lengthy, but it just kept growing....

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The crew strolls down the narrow market street, eyeing most of the yet-to-open shops with varying interests. Armin makes note of a vintage bookstore near the start of the walk while Connie snickers at a joke and prop shop next door.

Eren, hands in his pockets with a rather weary look on his face, follows a short distance behind the three leading. Mikasa bumps into him from his left, slipping her hand under his arm and pulling his hand from his pocket as she interlocks their fingers. Her eyes glitter as she squeezes his hand. Eren admits a warm, albeit brief smile as he returns the squeeze and they continue walking.

They continue a solid third of a kilometer down the alley, stopping occasionally to survey crossroads and backstreets for more interesting avenues. But, with little interest drawing their attention elsewhere, they continue down the same alley as the few individually interesting shops at the start of the walk fade away to a lot of mundane kitchen/dining room style shops. At least more and more of the shops are lifting their shudders now, opening business for the day...

Armin pauses, looking up at the sign of a small shop with interest just as the owner walks up and pulls up the shudders from inside the store. Jean and Connie continue a few steps before noticing Armin's attentiveness. Armin reads off the sign, more to himself than to the group, but nonetheless loud enough for them to hear as well, "Josiah's Esoteric Antiques."

He glances around, first at Eren and Mikasa then back to Jean and Connie. The latter pair shrug and begin walking into the store before anyone says anything. Eren and Mikasa look at one another for a moment, then follow behind Armin.

The store is narrow, but deep. Most of the light fades in from the main entrance and less from a few small artificial lights in the back of the shop behind the counter. The air is stuffy, dense. Probably from the compact shelves lined with a hodgepodge of semi-organized items ranging from books to figurines to... somethings they are not sure what they are.

Connie walks down the left-most aisle of the store straight away, Jean following more loosely behind him as he skims over the shelves with a growing interest in its variety. Armin, Eren, and Mikasa hover near a shelf by the main entrance along the right side of the shop. Armin looking at several large books, which Eren and Mikasa both presume to be information-heavy, dense books with technical details on some such thing or another.

After a moment shared skimming, Eren breaks from the two and walks farther down the wall towards the shop counter. Mikasa lingers behind, quietly sweeping up and down the wall's various trinkets.

Eren stops abruptly as something catches his eye. Mikasa notices out of the corner of her eye, but pays it little mind as she continues to search over the variety of merchandise. She can hear Armin awe at something he found in one of the books he was looking at a few moments ago. The store owner steps between Armin and Mikasa and begins talking with Armin about the book, explaining that many of the things in the store are from various nooks and crannies spread around the globe. Armin's eyes dazzle and he bursts into a torrent of questions. The owner chuckles and tries to answer him as quickly as Armin shoots off questions, but is more than bogged down in reminiscence of his travels and the details of each question.

Eren catches a few bits of the conversation, but only happens to look up at their exchange as the owner mentions something about his wife and daughter's last trip to a place called "Del-hi," or something close... it was bit difficult to hear through the man's unusual accent. He replaces the object of interest on the shelf and meanders further into the store.