Crack of Sunlight (Ereri/Riren)

*~Chapter One~*

                  

The heavenly scent of garlic and tomato sauce happily greeted Eren's sensitive nose as he stepped through the threshold of his house and out of the frigid outside air.

"Where have you been?" mumbled his sister around a mouth full of apple as she emerged from the kitchen.

"Hello to you, too," Eren muttered, kicking his soaked shoes off. "And I was looking for a job."

"Again? Don't you think if someone was gonna hire you, they would've done so by now?" She plopped down onto the couch.

"Yeah, and that's why they did," the male shot back, already annoyed by her attitude. "Where's mom?"

"Kitchen."

The little brat didn't even seem to notice what he'd said. Whatever.

Eren sauntered into the kitchen - the source of the heavenly garlic smell - to find his mother chopping mushrooms and sliding them into the steaming pot of spaghetti sauce from the cutting board. She was oblivious to him entering the kitchen, so he took advantage of the opportunity and snuck up behind her. Gently grabbing her shoulders, he shouted, "Bah!" Not so surprisingly, she didn't so much as flinch, but grinned.

"Nice try, hon," she said.

The brunet sighed, pretending to be disappointed. "You're unscarable."

She winked at him and moved to put the rest of the mushrooms in the sauce.

"After years of your father pulling stunts like that, I've gotten used to it," she explained.

"Dad did that?"

"All the time. How did job hunting go?"

Before picking a grape off the stem from the basket on the table and popping it in his mouth, Eren said, "Great for once. I found one."

Carla turned, eyebrows raised. "Did you? Where?"

Around another grape, he mumbled, "That tattoo shop a few miles north of here. I went in for an application and the owner interviewed me instead and hired me on the spot."

Carla turned, evidently a bit suspicious with an eyebrow just slightly raised in his direction. "Eren, no offense, but you're a terrible artist, how-"

Eren chuckled. "No, no, I'm not an artist. I'm just an assistant. I'm supposed to help keep things organized and stuff."

Relief replaced the mild suspicion on the woman's face. "Oh good. Go tell your sister to wash up. Dinner's almost ready."

"Kay." Eren popped one last grape between his lips as he exited the kitchen. Mikasa was still lounging on the couch, mesmerized by the television as she absently fidgeted with the apple core. The elder teen snatched a pillow off of the reclining chair as he passed and chucked it at her, calling, "Get ready to eat."

The girl was broken out of her reverie by the pillow hitting her right in the face. Her fingers clamped around the apple core as she turned to glare at her brother, but he was already halfway up the stairs, chortling at her expression as he went.

At dinner, Carla opened up to speak about something Eren had feared from the minute he was hired at the tattoo shop. As soon as she opened her mouth, he knew what was coming and sighed internally.

"Eren, I'm so glad you managed to find a job after looking for so long. I just want you to be extra careful. A lot of bad things can happen around or in places like those..."

"Places like what?" Mikasa asked. She'd been trying to kick Eren under the table as payback for him chucking the pillow at her - unbeknownst to Carla - but was so far unsuccessful.