Chapter Text
“Sashaaaaa, get out of the shower! I still have to brush my teeth! I’m gonna be late for class!”
From within the bathroom, you hear, “You can brush your teeth while I’m in here! I’ll just unlock the door!” The lock clicks. “Okay, you can come in now!”
You open the bathroom door and are immediately smothered by steam. The bathroom of the tiny apartment you share with Sasha is reasonably clean, but it, like the rest of the apartment, does not really have enough space for two people to live in without butting heads at least a bit. And today, on the first day of classes of your first semester of your junior year in college, you are in no mood for butting heads. You’re pretty responsible, and you hate the idea of being late on your first day and making a bad impression.
As you brush your teeth, you say, “Hey, Sash? I was thinking… I might want to get my cartilage pierced. You know, as a little appearance change for the new year.”
“Yeah? Which side?”
“I haven’t decided yet, but probably the right I guess. Do you think it’s a good idea?”
The shower shuts off and a hand emerges from behind the curtain to grab a towel. “Yeah, definitely! Super edgy and cute.”
“Hm.” You finish brushing your teeth and examine your face in the mirror, tilting your head to look at your right ear and pinch the place where you want to add the piercing. “I don’t know where to go, though, to get it done. I mean, I’m pretty nervous, so I want to go somewhere I know is safe and reliable.”
Sasha steps out of the shower with her towel wrapped around her torso. She passes behind you and out into the hallway as she says, “You could always go where I went.”
Finished in the bathroom, you exit behind her and follow her through the apartment. “Huh? You don’t have any piercings. Well, besides the lobes, but I’m pretty sure you got those done at a Piercing Pagoda when you were ten, just like everyone else.”
She passes into her bedroom to change and you lean your back against the door after she shuts it. “Sure, I do! I got my bellybutton pierced last year. Didn’t I tell you?”
“What?!” You exclaim. “No, no you did not! Believe me, I would have remembered.”
Sasha emerges from her bedroom, dressed in a tank top and a tennis skirt, her hair wrapped up into a twisted towel hat to dry. “Well, I did. Here, look.” She lifts her tank top, exposing her toned stomach with-- you can’t believe it-- two sparkling pink gems decorating her bellybutton.
She lowers her shirt again and blows past you into the kitchen. “Sasha, I had no idea you were so… hot.” You both laugh.
“Well, now you know,” she says. “I went to the Tattooery. Have you heard of it?”
You have. “Yeah, but I thought that was just, you know, for tattoos?”
Sasha roots through the pantry, looking for breakfast. You wander into the adjoining living room to finish packing your backpack for the day as she explains, “Well, it is, mostly. But they have this one guy there that does piercings, Levi. You can walk in and get one done whenever, but if he’s not there, you’re out of luck. So, if you want to be sure, you need to call ahead and make sure he’s in that day before you go. He’s really good. I know because I was terrible about cleaning this thing but I still didn’t get an infection, so he must have done a good job.”
“Huh.” You zip up your backpack and throw it over your shoulder. “Well, maybe I’ll go there, then. I just feel like I need a change. I mean, I just turned twenty-one, and I still feel like I’m the same person as when I graduated high school. It’s getting too boring.”
“Yeah, you’re way too boring,” Sasha says, taking a bite of a granola bar, and you pout at her. “I’m kidding, (y/n).”
“I know, I know.” You pull your phone out of the back pocket of your jeans to check the time. “Shit. I gotta go.”
“Okay,” Sasha says, her mouth full. She swallows as you march to the door, and then calls out after you, “You were gonna make dinner tonight, right?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna pick up some stuff at the grocery store after my classes. Just text me if you want anything else. Bye!” You shut the door behind you. Levi at the Tattooery, you think to yourself. Huh. Well, if it’s good enough for Sasha, it’s good enough for me, I guess.
~~~
After your first class, you head to the Student Union to buy lunch. You’re supposed to meet your friends Armin and Jean there to eat together. You said you would meet at noon… It’s almost 12:15 when you arrive, so you figure you’ve still beat them by about ten minutes and have time to get your food before you sit down to wait for them. You decide to get a Cobb salad from Chick Fil A. After getting your food, you sit down at an empty table for four in the bustling student union. You decide to wait to eat until your friends get here, and look around, anxiously waiting for them to arrive so that you don’t look like a loser for much longer.
After a couple minutes, you see them walk in side by side, deep in a conversation that looks like it’s very entertaining. Armin turns his head forward first, immediately spotting you. Smiling, he waves at you, and you return the wave with equal enthusiasm. When they reach your table, you stand up to give them both hugs. You haven’t seen them since the end of last semester, after all.
“Aw, there’s my boys!” You exclaim warmly, pulling both of them into your arms. “Hi, (y/n),” they reply in unison, Armin smiling and Jean rolling his eyes. You and Jean sit down across from each other as Armin says, “I’m gonna go get our food, Jean,” and then dutifully walks off. You start to prep your salad, applying the dressing and closing the container to shake it until it’s evenly tossed.
“You’re gonna let him order for you?” you ask Jean after Armin is out of earshot.
Jean scoffs. “No. We ordered with the app on the walk here, so it should be packaged and ready by now.”
“Oh, cool. Where’d you order from?”
“McDonalds,” Jean says, grinning at you mischievously. You hate McDonalds, and he knows it.
You play into the bit and mock a gag as you reopen your salad to start eating. “Ugh. I don’t know how you can eat that shit.” By the time you finish speaking, Armin has already returned. He sits down on your left with a sharp exhale, dropping one bag in front of Jean and one bag in front of himself. “That was fast,” you comment.
“I’m pretty hungry, and I actually don’t have much time before my next class,” Armin explains, already unwrapping a burger. “I have maybe fifteen minutes before I have to start walking there.”
“What class?” you ask.
“It’s my architecture workshop. First one ever… six hours long.”
You and Jean both exclaim in horror. Armin laughs lightly at your reactions. “I know, I know, but I’ve heard it really isn't bad. It’s not like a six hour lecture. You’re actually doing stuff. You’re busy.” He takes a bite and then asks you through a full mouth, “Anyway, how are you? What’s going on?”
“Oh, I’m good. The usual. You know.”
“How’s it living with Sasha?” Jean asks. You'd just moved in with her a couple weeks before the start of the semester. You’d met through your shared biology major and had become close friends, but this is your first time living together somewhere.
“She’s great,” you smile. “It’s Sasha, you know. She’s sweet and funny. I know it’s early, but I think it’s going to be a good year with her. I mean, as a roommate, so far she’s clean and doesn’t make noise at nighttime, and that’s really all I’m looking for.”
“I’m surprised she isn’t already eating you out of house and home,” Jean jokes.
“Oh, she is,” you say, chuckling. “But we split the cost of groceries so it’s not terrible. Besides, I get plenty of opportunities to practice my cooking skills.” You take a bite of your salad. “Oh, hey, how’d it go with that guy the other day?”
Jean grimaces, shaking his head. “Eh. Neh. Not good.” You and Armin glance at each other and grin as Jean launches into an explanation. “I mean, he was fine, I guess. I only met him on a dating app, so I wasn’t expecting much. We just had a drink and talked some. I think he wanted to take me home with him, but during the date he did proudly tell me that he, quote, ‘beat herpes,’ so I wasn’t keen. Serves me right for trying to have a nice date using Grindr. Blegh. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Back to you, (y/n). Ooh, I know-- what’s up with you and Eren?”
You roll your eyes, trying to stifle a blush and a grin. “Nothing.” Both boys’ eyes are on you as you say this, and Armin shakes his head, his mouth full, not believing you for a second.
“We don’t believe that for a second,” Jean translates. “There’s always something going on with you guys.”
“No, there’s not!” you protest. “There’s not always something going on with us.” You sigh. “And there’s really not now, since he’s been abroad for the past three months.”
“You guys haven’t kept in touch?” Jean asks, surprised and a little judgmental.
“I mean, kind of. We’ve texted a little bit, but mostly small talk. I really don’t do well over text. I can only communicate well in person or over the phone, and he’s in a different time zone, so we don’t talk much.”
“Mm! Mmm!” Armin exclaims through a full mouth, tapping your shoulder.
Amused, you look at Jean and say, “I think he’s trying to tell us something.”
“It’s like trying to communicate with Lassie,” he jokes, and you giggle.
Armin is unfazed, and after swallowing, says to you, “You know he’s back, right?”
You hadn’t. “What?” you exclaim. “I thought he wasn’t coming back until mid-September, and it’s still the tail end of August.”
“He wasn’t, but he didn’t want to miss the first few weeks of his classes, so he managed to get his supervisor in the internship to let him go early. He’s still getting full credit and all. They must have really liked him over there.”
“What was he doing, again?” you ask.
“Something. I don’t really get it. I think he was basically being a runner for some diplomat in the EU. But that can’t be all it was, though, because he sure did have lots of opportunities to tell people his opinions.”
“Of course he was telling everyone his opinions,” Jean cuts in. “He’s a political science and communications double major. I swear, that guy thinks he’s so fantastic that he can completely smooth out the Middle East with one hand behind his back.”
“Oh, like you’re so fantastic,” you quip. “Eren’s probably never going to get further than the State Senate, but you’ll probably end up working at a Baskin Robbins, English Major.”
“I’m. Also. Minoring. In. French!”
You smile. Really, you like how ambitious Eren is, even if he can be overbearing sometimes, and you think his and Jean’s constant squabbling is really entertaining. You've always had a little bit of a thing for Eren since you met him through Armin in freshman year. Eren and Armin had been friends for all of high school, and so had you and Jean, so when Jean and Armin were roommates in freshman year, the four of you had become friends. You're pretty sure Eren has always been a little interested in you as well. You and him have always had a bit of a back-and-forth that never seems to turn into anything.
Jean breaks the silence and says, “I’m sorry, but can we talk about Eren running halfway across the globe just to get away from his girlfriend?”
“I’m sure that’s not what happened,” you say, wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if he was dating someone who wasn’t you.
“Mm…” Armin mumbles skeptically.
“See? Armin agrees,” Jean says.
Armin swallows to explain. “No, I don’t, not with either of you. He had that internship lined up for months, before he even met Mikasa. Although, when I spoke to him while he was there, he did say quite a lot about how nice it was to get some space from her. I guess eventually he figured out that he liked his life better without her in it and decided to break up with her while he was overseas where she couldn’t kill him.”
“What?” you say, confused.
“What?” Armin says, confused by your confusion.
“He… broke up with her?” you say tentatively.
“Yeah,” Armin says matter-of-factly, taking another bite. “You didn’t know that?”
“No, I didn’t…” you trail off.
“Oh shit! Oh shit!” Jean laughs, grinning stupidly at you. “Something’s gonna happen! You’re getting ideas!”
“I am not getting ideas. I don’t have any ideas, or any feelings, or- anything! I’m just thinking…”
“Oh fuck, I gotta go,” Armin says suddenly, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he stands up. “Let me know if you guys want to hang out later this week, okay?”
“Okay, sweetie, have a good class,” you say.
“I will!” he calls back to you, already halfway across the seating area in the student union.
You sigh and turn back to Jean. “You don’t have anywhere to be for a bit, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” he says. “I’m actually done for the day. I had both my classes in the morning.”
“Oh, cool. Hey, listen, I’ve been thinking about getting a cartilage piercing. On the right, I think. What do you think?”
Jean fakes a wince, pulling the length of his hair aside to expose his own pierced right ear as he says, “Ohhh, I don’t know. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“What?!” you exclaim. “When did that happen?”
“Last week,” he says, letting his hair fall in front of the piercing again.
“Damn, everyone keeps getting piercings and not telling me,” you complain. Jean looks confused, so you elaborate: “Sasha, apparently, has had a belly button piercing for a year, and never told me until this morning.”
“Really? Wow,” Jean says, raising his brows. “I didn’t think she was that kind of girl.”
“I know, right? Anyway, I told her this morning that I wanted to get my ear pierced, and she said I should go to the Tattooery. Apparently they have a piercing guy there that’s really good. I think she said his name was-”
“Levi,” Jean cuts you off, his eyes lighting up. “Yeah, I went to him for mine. Sasha’s right, you should go there. Totally safe and sanitary.”
“Scary?” you ask.
“Not scary at all,” he assures you. “When are you gonna go?”
“Oh, um… Soon, I think.”
“Then let’s go tomorrow. I’ll come with you. Armin, too, I bet; he told me earlier that he’s free.”
“Really? You want to come along for that? What’s in it for you?” You're skeptical because Jean, while sweet, has the tendency to seek his own entertainment first.
“I have a good thing going with the desk girl. I flirted with her when I went there last week, and I could tell she was totally digging it. I bet if I went again I could seal the deal,” Jean says, grinning stupidly again.
You sigh. “Well, that makes sense, then.” You check the time on your cell phone. “Hm, I think I’d better go. I have to go grocery shopping and then make dinner tonight for me and Sasha. But yeah, we can go tomorrow. I’ll text Armin if you call ahead and make sure the piercing guy is in?”
“His name is Levi,” Jean corrects you. “And yes, I can do that. Let’s meet outside of the Tattooery at, say, 3?”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” you say, loading the trash from your salad back into the bag it came in and swinging your backpack over your shoulder. “I’ll ask Sasha if she wants to come along, and maybe Eren too. We can make a day of it.”
“Yeah, cool, okay,” Jean says.
“You’re not getting up?” you ask, noticing that Jean hadn’t started packing up his stuff yet even though you had.
“Nah, I’m gonna chill here and do some homework for a while.”
“Oh okay, cool. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Jean,” you say, turning around to leave.
“See ya, (y/n)!” he calls out after you.
Huh. This is happening really fast. This morning that piercing was barely an idea, and now I have plans to get it done. Oh, well, I wanted a change, and now, here it is. Besides, if I decide I hate it, I can always just take it out and let the hole close up. You sigh as you emerge from the student union and into the hot August air. Tomorrow is going to be a fun day.