Whatever god up there was really keen on punishing him. It was a coincidence how he kept seeing him very often.
"Eren," he stated without even thinking first.
The teenager, looking as if he hadn't slept for a few thousand years, slowly looked towards him as if in slow motion. He did not smile or frown, but the corners of his lips went up in acknowledgement. His unkept and greasy looking hair fell down in front of his eyes like a curtain of seaweed, and his hands stained with blue ink.
"Fancy seeing you here," he said sarcastically.
"Yeah," Levi agreed. The atmosphere around them was so tight with awkwardness, the kind two exes would feel after breaking a long relationship.
"How... how have you been?" Eren asked, much to Levi's surprise.
"Not very good."
"Me too," was all he replied with.
"Well, I should get going now," Levi said with a sharp nod of his head.
"Wait." Eren's hand shot forward to grab Levi's wrist, but he quickly let go of it once realizing what he had done. His eyes were glued to the floor in a solemn sense. "I want to start over."
Levi's eyes widened and his heart leaped out of his mouth like a fish out of water. "I beg your pardon?" His voice was hoarse.
"I don't like this, whatever this is." Eren made various hand gestures, which didn't seem to help in trying to prove his point at all. "I don't... I don't want things to end this way."
"But this is how things should be. We are supposed to be strangers now, Eren, you can't just ask for a start over after everything I've put you through." Levi was already beginning to get mad. He combed a hand through his hair nervously and bit shallowly into the side of his inner cheeks.
"But you saved me," Eren argued. "I thought... I thought we had something."
"Are you referring to our kisses? Because I hope you know those were nothing. We were alone for Christ's sake. There was no one else but one another; who else were we supposed to release our romantic frustration onto? We were just... convenient for one another. I really must go now if that is all."
"Can we please talk about this somewhere else? I'm serious. I really do need to discuss this with you. Please." Eren stared up at him with those same ocean coloured eyes, but they were not crashing waves like they used to; they were calm, too calm and too dull.
"Fine. Just this once," Levi agreed, not wanting to cause a scene in the middle of the cereal aisle and making everyone around them think they were fighting over a certain type of cereal.
They both walked to a coffee shop near by without muttering a word to one another. Eren left his grocery bags in his mother's car and Levi just carried his own, Eren assumed the government wouldn't let him have his own car yet. Once they arrived at the petite and nearly empty cafe, they took a two-person table seated outside. Levi idly looked at the menu board while Eren blankly played with the sugar packets. The coffee shop was very comfy; vines twisting and curling around sodden columns and the stained wood walls and floors, a giant, classic chalk board menu above the cash register and steel wire tables and chairs with throw pillows on them. There were sine framed vintage posters advertising the most simple of things such as bandaids and cakes, giving off the old-style kind of vibe.
"So... what is there to talk about? I don't appreciate my time being wasted," Levi said to break the silence.
Eren picked a sugar packet up, ripped it and dumped its contents inside his mouth. He savoured the taste and the rocky texture of the sugar before setting it down and putting his hands together. "Why."
