Weeaboo {Ereri}

XVII.

And what do you think of that?

Surely, I was hallucinating. By all means, the pounding in my chest and head, the unraveled energy trembling in my calves, were real, but this, this, couldn't be. houtarou: big-asstrees? No, I reconsidered, blinking and patting my face. No, this is real. I'm simply mistaking him for him. houtarou: come on, don't back out of the promise. xd. The message remained, regardless of how many times I blinked or touched my face. It was there, for both of us to see, on MSG.

houtarou: my name? :p only if u tell me urs, big-asstrees. My username was said as almost an insult, the freaking tease.

my name is eren.

~~~

The sky was the same the next day, sun resting its hands on its cheeks atop the trees, observing me. The sidewalk, cracked and cool, hadn't changed. My clothes were still cheap and wrinkly. Dreadful foreplay of what was to come today leaked over the horizon, ruining the sight with brick plaster and yellow buses. Yellow like inhalers. Plaster like the stiff smiles Petra began to give now and then. Bricks like the color of my skin as I fumbled in my pockets and licked my lips next to Eren.

The back of my neck felt awfully itchy. My eyes sneaked glances at him every now and again. I wasn't sure when he'd caught on to my nervous tics, but he squinted now, flat-eyed and mouth full of toast, leaning near. "Oi*," he drawled, "what's your problem?"

"N-nothing for you to butt in about, you freaking voyeur-" I broke off, groaning from the sharp, copper pain my teeth had embedded in my tongue. "Agh, geeth." I flushed.

Eren raised one, infuriatingly thick eyebrow and reached out a hand to my shoulder. "Daijou-**"

My fingers, fumbling with cold sweat, slapped him away quite rudely. "Stop. Just stop." We crossed the school's lawn back onto concrete. "I'm fine, thanks."

"Oh," he trailed off, humming. "Oh!" he added. "Oh- oh, Levi-" (enacting a flat "redundant" from me) "-that reminds me, what on Earth are we going to do about our English project?!"

I covered my mouth and suppressed a sudden, rather disgusting urge to mutter "Shimatta***". You see, once you meet this Eren, he gets in your head and can't get out, almost as if he were shoved into a dark, shameful closet locked from the outside. And I, of course, had swallowed the key unwillingly. "It's due in December, right? We have over two months. We'll be okay."

But Eren was already out of earshot, crouching to his knees and plastering hands to the sides of his head. "Kuso****, kuso, kuso, kuso, kuso!" he mumbled to himself.

"We can't lose hope so soon!" I called desperately.

His head craned shakily to me. "She'll kill us."

"Enough of that!" It was only then that I'd come to my senses, and all the events of last night came crumbling down around me. "Stay there if you'd like." I turned and went for the school doors, quick enough to stop him seeing the color spreading down my ears to the base of my throat.

"All of this is ridiculous," I assured myself, waving a hand. "Absolutely ridiculous." There was no way that impertinent fool would be the same as the wonderful friend I'd made online. Statistics wouldn't allow it. No way Eren could be the same as houtarou.

No way he could be the person I fell in love with via text.

Face buried into knitted palms during the entirety of pre-calculus, the words no way engraved themselves over my vision. "No way, no way," I whispered, on the brink of hysteria. A tap on the shoulder sent me reeling, peering up at the teacher. Classmates stared.