✘ "You have a new match!" [Riren] [R-18] ✘

26: Fighting spirit

Eren's POV

They made a quick stop at the local gas station to refuel as well as buy a drink each before they continued what Levi had promised would be a short drive. Eren wondered what kind of place he'd want to take him to this late into the evening in such a small town.

"Should be here somewhere..." Levi mumbled seemingly to himself as the road took them to the outskirts of the town, until there barely was any buildings left in sight. But just as Eren started to think that he must've took the wrong turn somewhere, he suddenly saw huge lights appear between the trees ahead of them. Levi slowed down and left the main road for a much smaller road leading into the forest. The vegetation quickly opened up and instead a big field packed with cars spread out in front of them. On the opposite end he could see what looked like a huge screen.

"Oh shit" Eren said, his face lightening up in a big smile. It was a drive-in theater. Eren had only visited such a place once before, he watched Disney's 'Cars' with his mother back when he was about 8 years old at a drive-in. But they had become increasingly rare and by now they almost only existed in rural areas such as this.

The area was lit up by some of the cars whose headlights were still on, together with a few big spotlights that someone had brought here for the occasion. Levi stopped the car as they reached a wooden table that stood at the side of the small road right before the open field. Behind it stood one boy and two girls who couldn't be more than 10-13 years old, together with a young man who probably was a bit older than Eren. The kids were all making impressed and excited faces at the sight of Levi's car. Levi rolled down the window at his side and leaned out.

"Good evening!" the young man greeted them.

"Good evening. A ticket for us both" Levi said with his usual stone-faced expression.

"Right on!" The young man said and looked back at the young boy who then hurried to rip off two small pink bits of paper.

"Here you are, eh, that'll be 14 dollars, please" the preteen-looking boy said with a cracking voice that witnessed of that he was starting to hit puberty. Levi picked up a 20 dollar bill which he gave the boy.

"Keep the change" he said. The boy's face lit up and he made an impressed face again. The kid seemed to instantly idolize Levi and Eren couldn't blame him.

Now the girls in the back hurried forward. They both wore some kind of sports T-shirts with player numbers and their last names on it.

"The girls' handball team is selling cookies for a good price to a good cause!" one of them hurried to say while smiling sweetly and lifting up a box with said chocolate chip cookies. The other girl seemed to elbow the first girl in the side.

"The soccer team is selling popcorn sir!" she said and pointed to the table where a bunch of popcorn boxes were lined up. Levi gave the two offered options a quick skeptical look before looking over at Eren.

"Do you want some?" he asked and immediately the girls' gazes turned to him expectantly.

"Uh..." Eren said, finding it hard to have to disappoint one of them. "Well, yeah..." He looked back at Levi with an unsure look on his face. Levi must've read his thoughts since he let out a light, amused snort and turned back to the girls.

"We'll take one each" he said, looking at them. Oh man... Eren thought, suddenly feeling very warm inside. The seemingly cold man definitely had some soft sides to him... and to see him interact with the kids did something very weird to his insides.

Ugh, calm your damn hormones Eren, he scolded himself as he received the popcorn and pack of cookies.

The young man helped them tune in their FM-radio to the right frequency which the movie soundtrack would be broadcast at. Then they nodded goodbye to the group of youths and drove inside to try to find a fairly good spot.