Under My Skin || Eren Yeager

chapter 1 - Plans

You typed the last words before you paused and let the cursor sit there blinking at you for a few moments before you placed the final full stop and pulled your fingers away from the keyboard.

You looked at the screen once again as you hand crept to the tail of you back, now aching from sitting at a desk too long – that was something you would have to get used to. A moment later, you pushed send.

It was done.

The interview that everyone from sports journalists to gossip columnists wanted and you, a virtually nameless hobby photographer who worked in the IT department at a magazine where people genuinely passed you in the halls and asked you if you were new (you been there three years) - you got it.

Not that you minded being somewhat invisible, honestly you'd spent a great deal of your youth wanting to be just that. A child prodigy and a certified genius didn't exactly mesh well with High School and so you, two years younger than your peers, developed this ability to blend.

You had friends, great ones, and you 'liked' your job in the IT department of Verdant magazine, at least until you squired away enough money to start up your own company and then you would poach your fellow Connie Springer and you two would set about taking the world by storm.

At least that had been the plan up until about six months ago.

Now, you weren't entirely sure.

| Eight Months Ago |

It was early July and the afternoon sun was high in the cloudless sky as you sat cross-legged on cherry-wood bench in a bustling park half a block from your concrete 9-5 confinement, just watching the people in suits natter away on their cell phones while Connie prattled off about his annoyance at a comic he was reading.

You took another bite of you sandwich and chomped silently as your eyes moved across the road from the park to a bistro playing a World Cup match to a crowd of rowdy sports fans toting mugs of beer.

You decided that someone must have scored a goal because the cheering was almost deafening as it echoed through the crisp, summery day.

"They're probably all cheering for Tokyo's prodigal son, hoping he'll return," Connie muttered as he looked over the edge of his graphic novel, "Honestly, why would he?"
You looked down at your friend with a quizzical expression on your face, because you really had no idea what he was talking about.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" he laughed as he sat up and playfully slapped the rolled up comic against your knee.
"He's talking about Eren Yeager," Sasha interrupted as the beauty slid alongside you and plucked an uneaten apple from her lunch cooler – not that you minded, after all the pretty reporter with perfect skin and a million dollar smile was one of the few people you actually counted as a friend.

"Oh the recluse footballer that plays for Brazil?" you flippantly asked, hoping you had heard enough of the talk around the water cooler to be somewhat accurate.

"Did you hear the latest?" Sasha jabbered to a crowd of two that really weren't keeping up with the sport of the hour.

You shook your head as you finished your mouthful, "nope," you answered with a pop of your lips.

"After they won their semi-final, he came out yesterday and said that if they win the Cup he'll grant one reporter an interview."

You snorted out a laugh both at the seriousness with which Sasha espoused that information and the way her eyes grew wide with excitement.

"You don't cover sports," you quipped before you took a decidedly long drink from your thermos of iced coffee; saving for a business didn't allow splurges like that and you had become rather adept at making your own half decent one.