Key to a Caged Heart

Let's Cheers To This

"Is that the last bag?"

Eren dumped his backpack filled with new notebooks, pens, and other school supplies on top of his duffle, then shut the trunk door.

"Yup. And I'm starving so let's go."

"If you had packed last night, you wouldn't have had to do it this morning and we would be eating already."

Eren elected to ignore that truthful comment and climbed into the driver's seat of his car.

"Race you there?"

He could hear bits and pieces of Levi's argument for how stupid, dangerous, and illegal it was to race each other in their cars through his laughter as he backed out of his parking spot.

Despite his competitive words, Eren drove as he normally did and slowed down for every red light instead of speeding through yellow. He was nothing if not a cautious driver. Besides, he had at least a two minute head start on Levi who wasn't even in his car when Eren drove off. Yet when he arrived, Levi's car was already parked and the man sat inside waiting for him, a mug of tea held between his hands. Eren elected to question Levi's suspicious first place arrival at a later time; getting food was his primary goal.

"This is weird," Eren said, cutting into his blueberry pancakes. "This is the first time we've eaten breakfast food at Maria's in the actual morning."

Levi shrugged as he cut into his omelet. "Any time is breakfast time if you remember that time is an illusion."

The fork paused in its trajectory to Eren's mouth as he stopped to contemplate his entire reality.

Maria's itself was like an alternate reality, comparing how it looked in the morning versus the night. The diner was still calm like it was at night, an orchestra of clinking cutlery combining with the chatter of the patrons to create a soothing white noise, but there was an added energy not present in the late hours. The light shining between the honey colored curtains and washing the diner in a warm glow was a reminder of all the promise the day held.

"You sure you don't need any help unpacking?"

"Naw." Eren swallowed his food but forked another piece of pancake into his mouth and kept talking. "Jean is up there now helping Marco unpack, and unpacking his own shit. I can get at least one if not both of them to help me. Besides, it's a three hour drive each way and I'm driving up in my car; I'm not going to make you drive six hours total by yourself just to help me shove my clothes into a drawer and toss some sheets on my bed."

"I don't mind," Levi insisted.

Eren reached across the table to grab Levi's hand and squeezed.

"I know."

Levi would do it if he asked. Though Eren truly didn't want Levi to go to such lengths just to help him unpack, he had another reason for why he preferred to say their temporary farewells in Shiganshina. Once he arrived at Stohess University and had to face his new environment and the countless strangers within it, it would be much harder letting go of Levi's familiar comfort.

Without any prompting from Levi, Eren began a monologue about the upcoming semester to take his mind off of their approaching not-goodbye, though he truly was excited. He bemoaned the 8am psychology class he had on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but otherwise talked cheerily about the classes he signed up for. He didn't yet know what he wanted to study, so he was getting his Gen Ed's out of the way. Aside from psychology, he was taking a college writing class, sociology class, and was convinced by Armin to sign up for a geology class to fulfill his biological sciences Gen Ed requirement.