lovefool | eren x levi

twelve years.

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eren was twelve when he saw a repeated event of that day in second grade. the day when eren and levi were standing outside the school front doors, and when levi had spotted seventh grade pretty girls stroll up to a pretty boy's car.

this time, he did not have little peeking holes from levi's hands that he had forgotten to cover. there was nobody stopping him from watching what they were doing.

eren and armin both stopped walking as they watched.

the pretty girls were all in a group, some of them he recognized this time; they were his own classmates. the ones that loved to spread annoying rumors that so-and-so liked eren. he hated the attention because it immediately went straight to his head, and it was a bother for armin to humble eren each time he heard another one.

armin's greatest fear from eren playing the same sport his entire childhood and being talented at it was that, like all other athletes he knew in his grade, he would boast every chance he got, completely disregarding other lives. he would become the norm.

thankfully, ever since armin had met him, he had been able to keep eren under the belt.

so now, eren watched with wide eyes as he saw a pretty girl get into a car with a much older pretty boy. he watched the pretty boy slide the money to the pretty girl, and he watched them drive off.

"a horrible branch of the norm, if i must say," armin finally said, speaking in the forced muteness. "that a woman must always abide by a man's will, and eventually, she too, will find pleasure in it."

"i agree completely," he murmured. "it's abominable, and yet, it always happens."

armin paused to fiddle with the top of eren's head, twirling the strands that fell from his temple.

"eren, if you were to ever like a person—this is hypothetical, seeing how uncomfortable you get with any mention about likings—that you cherished more than anything, but they seemed so quietly unavailable, would you still continue your likings for them?"

eren gulped. armin's voice had lowered from his regular tone to that know-it-all whisper eren was too familiar with, and not once did he stop tugging on random hairs of eren's head.

when armin asked that question, too many yelling statements in eren's head soared, all screaming one thing. this was eren's chance.

it was far from normal, eren had to note. armin hated normal more than eren ever could, though. and that meant extending to the point of confessing to your best friend right after witnessing your classmate walking into the act of sex with a high schooler that had to be at least four years older than them.

"did you aim that question purposely to see if it were hypothetical or not?"

"well, with all leading questions, i aimed to see more out of your body language than your spoken language," armin said, chuckling, "but i think i don't need your answer."

eren took a breath, preparing himself for what he was about to do. easing himself into a subject was hard enough when it was someone who did not understand his every word as armin did.

when he had first told mikasa of his crush, using terms she had only heard from her friends, she had turned him down with confused, twisted words.

but with armin, he knew what eren would say before he even spoke it. with one look at armin, eren knew that armin knew what he was trying to say, and still, he was watching him with a curled smile, waiting for him to say something. he was torturing him!