Chapter 1: Attraction
To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.
Because, if you can love someone, and keep loving them, without being loved back . . . then that love has to be real.
It hurts too much to be anything else.
He dressed for the day, repeating the monotonous pattern of the buttoning of a shirt, the buckling of a belt. His fingers were tired.
There was a veil over his eyes. It replaced the suffering with cold malice. It hid everything.
Levi had always believed in putting on a good face.
Presenting himself with all of the confidence and superiority that a captain should have, showing not a whisper nor blink of weakness.
No one knew what kinds of battles stormed below Levi's composure, what sort of monsters ravaged his insides. With every moment, they burned in his veins like wildfire. They set forth something from his heart that scorched him to the bone.
His passion was incessant. His lust rampant. His thoughts raged, sizzling and crackling under the heat of his devotion. And all of them, the fibers and chemicals of every word in his mind, ceaselessly screamed out a single name.
Eren.
Levi tasted a bitter taste on his tongue. One which had remained in the Captain's mouth ever since the day he and Eren Jaeger had first met.
Humans are all born with a box of matches inside them, but we cannot strike all of them by ourselves. Levi learned this the hard way. Eren's voice had spilled into Levi's ears in their currents of gasoline, a seeping poison that leaked into every atom of the Captain's body. And then, a deep, roaring flame of ambition and courage set in Eren's gaze sent Levi up in flames, melting his unwilling heart immutably and unconditionally.
Levi resented his love.
The carnal lust and unassailable desire that he held wrapped inside for Eren did nothing for the Captain but cause him great suffering. Levi had grasped the postulate that Eren felt nothing for him long ago. His hopes had bereft him one by one in falling petals from a dying flower, until there were none. His own fierce love had ruined him.
Regardless of the circumstances however, Levi held the thought of the soldier close to him always. He watched Eren from the shadows, followed him, and secretly cherished him as he mutilated himself in doing it.
As if he could help himself.
The sun's morning rays spilled through Levi's bedroom window as he finished dressing in his Scout Regiment uniform for the day. He stared at his ghostly reflection, noting the bags beneath his eyes and the glow of his pale skin.
His boots thumped on the wooden ground as he exited his sleeping quarters. In the long hallway that lead to the entrance of headquarters, Commander Erwin joined with Levi, matching his stride.
"Good morning, Captain," Erwin said. "Were you briefed earlier on today's training schedule for the new recruits? We've decided to incorporate Jaeger into the training, considering his lack of fighting skills. Although he has the great asset of becoming a titan, he still has not learned the basic principles of being a scout regiment soldier."
"Understood," Levi muttered. His heart conducted a tap dance, queued at the sound of his love's name.
Erwin and Levi opened the front doors of the castle, stepping into the bright light of the sunrise. The recruits were already lined up in perfect formation, waiting for their captain and commander.
