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↱"Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love."↲
-Charles Maurice de Talleyrand.
✺
the morning after
THE FIRST SNOWFALL CAME with fluffy crystal clouds floating through the air. Katerina could feel the ice pinching her red cheeks as her breath swirled in the dark air in front of her; bloody knuckles peeking out from the ratty gloves she wore.
"How are you not cold?" she grumbled, looking down to inspect Eren's outfit.
The young boy-Titan was dressed in nothing but training pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a green beanie. He was bouncing so rapidly he could have acted as his own heat source and had light sweat trickling coating his forehead.
Earlier that morning, Hange had barged into Katerina's room adamantly insisting she and Eren come help with her Titan experiments. Katerina agreed sheepishly with stale morning breath and boogers in her eyes, instantly regretting it as soon as she stepped out of the hot shower. Eren had met with her not too long after and Katerina had to basically restrain him to make sure he stepped out of the castle with decent winter clothes, his excitement only allowing her to slip a single beanie on his head.
"Hange said we can help with her experiments today! How are you not excited?" he questioned through chattering teeth, the green beanie Katerina had found him teetering off his head.
Katerina rolled her eyes as she slipped off her thick coat and helped Eren put it on, leaving her no better than he had been seconds before. She adjusted the beanie back on his head and wrapped her arms around him. "Let's just say I didn't get much sleep last night."
It was true. After running into Levi and returning to her room, she had laid awake all night staring at the snowfall as the sun rose.
During that lonely and cold night, there had been a moment where she had recalled just how close she and Levi had been. She had wondered what would have happened if Levi had closed the distance between their unmoving lips, how his rough hand would feel tangled in her hair. However, in the light of day, Katerina was silently thankful that nothing intimate had happened between them.
Even if she did harbor the tiniest bit of sentiment for him- which she would never admit- she knew she could never act on it. Putting aside the fact that he was her superior, she couldn't allow anybody else to drive her focus while Eren's future was still hanging in the balance. She still vividly remembered the Battle of Trost, when she had been so caught worrying about the wellbeing of a man she barely knew, that she completely missed when Eren had sealed the breach. Thankfully, the mission was successful, but she still couldn't get that nagging feeling out of her head. What if it hadn't been?
