Chapter Text
you try not to fool yourself into thinking that you still know eren.
it’s hard. it’s been almost a year and you’re still attached to how he made you feel like he was showing you parts of himself he could only ever let you know about. you still stare at the back of his head when he walks ahead of you on campus. you still shudder when warmth fills your chest whenever you hear people mention his name. you’re still stuck with this incomplete feeling, this loss of something that was never even really yours.
he was your friend and then he wasn’t, and that’s the only way you want to let yourself think about him.
you don’t want to think about him picking you up, insisting you buy him mcdonald’s, or the lingering stares from across the room when you hang out with his friends. you don’t want to think about how restless you got whenever you had to assure people you were ‘just friends’, that you just ‘get along really well.’
but a part of you hates him.
hates him for just…stopping. like none of it mattered. like you sitting in his car in the dead of the night, staring at each other after you had finally choked out that you liked him, didn’t matter. like him leaning in so close to you, practically breathing into your slightly parted lips and mumbling a distant ‘me too’ didn’t matter. like you just barely brushing your lips against his and listening to both of your laboured breaths hitching didn’t matter. like him smiling at you from the car until you reach your door, both beaming after barely even a kiss, didn’t matter.
like you didn’t matter.
but you most definitely, truly, hate him the most for deciding to apply for a job in the same café you work at just months after he had left you hanging. just weeks after you thought you were making peace with the radio silence on his end.
“who’s this?” you had asked, your eyes zeroing in on eren’s name at the bottom of the rota for the week pinned to the board in the break room. no way. no way, right?
“oh, eren jaeger. applied like a week ago,” your manager said from behind you, completely unaware of the way your heart had started to pound against your sternum.
what the fuck?
it takes one day of standing behind the counter, watching eren walk in donning an identical all black uniform as you, for you to decide that you can’t stand the sight of him. you can’t stand the sight of him, you can’t stand the sight of his hair (grown out now and slightly dishevelled), you can’t stand the sight of him talking to your co-workers (your co-workers, for fucks sake. he knows you work here), you can’t stand the sight of him at the far end of the counter getting taught how to make a cappuccino or macchiato or americano or whatever the fu–
“hey,” he casually calls out, making momentary eye contact as he walks past you on the other side of the counter and disappears into the break room.
that. you can’t stand that. and you can’t stand how much you want him to do it again.
so as soon as your shift ends, you’re off to your manager and asking to take night shifts instead, knowing full well eren won’t be there. and your manager lets you (of course he does, it’s hard enough getting people to want to work the night shift. he’s practically beaming when you ask), and you don’t see eren again.
you don’t see him for the last three months of semester, you even sometimes forget that he works at the same place as you, only reminded by his name on the roster. seeing the back of his head on campus gets easier and watching him slink around with his friends (hair just growing and growing) gets more bearable. until it’s summer and your shitty beach town is flooded with tourists and you’re fine. you’re fine. and the way eren had stopped speaking to you after he had looked at you like you had mattered so much that night is okay.
and you try to convince yourself it’s okay too when you’re in at half five in the evening, apron on, the first week of summer, and for some fucking reason eren is standing in front of you with your manager. like this is perfectly okay for him as well. because it probably is.
he had shown a long time ago that he doesn’t fucking care. so why do you?
“hey, found someone to cover hitch for the time being,” your manager says when you walk up to him and eren. he doesn’t notice the way your jaw is practically clamped shut, or the struggle to pry it back open enough to say something back.
“i said i could handle it alone, though,” you say as politely as possible, trying to ignore how eren’s gaze is fixed on you. even his silence, as innocent as it may be, has you seething. hitch, who used to do night shifts with you, has gone away for the entire summer, so you’re stuck manning the café on your own. or, you should be, but instead you’re sparing glances at eren’s towering figure in front of you trying to wish him into dust.
“no, it’s too much,” your manager says, and he cuts you off immediately when you open your mouth to protest, “listen, maybe before the summer it would’ve been fine, but there’s way too many tourists around the place to think it’ll be calm shifts for you on your own.”
he’s right, you know he is, and you have to stop yourself from fighting back more. a moment of silence passes and your manager exhales when he realises that you’ve surrendered.
“anyway, this is ere-”
“we’ve met,” you blurt out. you don’t even realise you’ve said it until you look up, shocked at the sound of your own voice, and find eren’s eyebrows raised. you want to slap them clean off, “i was still working days when he came.” you add hesitantly. your manager smiles cluelessly.
“oh, really? even better,” the older man exclaims before rubbing his hands together and starting to back away into the break room, “i’ll leave you to it then.”
you and eren are stuck standing opposite each other in the still empty café. he eventually raises a hand up to scratch the back off his neck and you watch him suspiciously.
“hey…partner,” eren says meekly, and that’s enough for you to exhale in response and make your way back around behind the counter, pretending to have found something to busy yourself with. eren follows suit.
and eventually customers come and go and you’re grateful that eren is competent and you really only have to bark coffee orders at him and nod when he asks questions and, if you try hard enough, you don’t even have to look at him. (you’re scared if you start letting yourself you won’t stop. and you’ll still be thinking of him when you’re finally able to go home. since when was his hair long enough to put into a bun? and every time you do spare him a glance between customers, he’s always already looking at you. you wish you could swallow down the feeling it gives you in your chest.)
there’s a lull in customers as the night sets in and for a naïve moment, you let yourself believe that eren will just let the silence between you remain. but, even if he’s grown a little now and looks a little different now, you can tell he still has the capacity to be an idiot. an annoying idiot. and he proves you right, of course.
“hey,” eren calls out to you from his place at the end of the counter, leaning against the cupboards housing extra supplies, “how come you decided to work night shifts?”
you don’t want to answer his questions or get used to how it feels to actually speak to him again, so you just shrug. you can just about make out him watching you warily from the corner of your eye.
“not a party girl?” he teases lightly.
“i don’t know, eren, how come you decided to work night shifts?” you snap slightly, and it only makes the closed mouth smile playing at his lips grow a little wider.
“hey, no need to get defensive,” he says, and you can tell he’s trying to be polite by the way he slightly holds his hand out in front of him. you only realise you’ve fully turned around to face him when you don’t feel your neck straining to look over at him and you immediately curse yourself for it, “didn’t call you a loser or anything.”
“that’s literally not what i was thinking at all,” you say, and eren holds his breath and decides not to say anymore. you want to be grateful for it, but for some reason your chest sinks when you realise he isn’t going to say anything more. and that he isn’t the same eren from months ago who would’ve jumped at the chance to make you even more irritated.
you hear him clutter through something behind you and clench your fists. this is going to be a one time thing. you’re just…gonna say this and be done with it. maybe you’ll quit. maybe you’ll switch to day shifts as obvious as that’ll be to eren. but the words are practically begging to spill out of you.
“eren,” you start, slowly turning around to face him. he leans back up from the cupboards and turns to face you as well, failing to hide the surprise plastered over his face at you deciding to address him first.
“yeah?” he questions. you gulp.
“how come you decided to work here?”
“what?”
“like…” god, why is this so hard to say? and why are you getting nervous? he’s the one that should feel bad around you, “like, you knew i was working here. so why did you decide to as well?”
the way eren stares at you makes you feel like you’re back in his car with him, the tension between you so thick that it feels like it’s going to suffocate you. you catch his lips slightly moving but no sound comes out and the more time passes the harder you swallow nothing but air.
“i…” he starts, putting down whatever he was holding in his hands on the counter. and it feels like he’s stepping closer to you. why is he stepping closer to you? why aren’t you bothered by it? why–
the creaking of the door sounds throughout the café and two customers walk in together. eren looks at the customers and back at you. you furrow your brows at him, waiting for some kind of answer. waiting for him to say something that might make having to stand behind this counter with him for the rest of the summer a little easier at least. eren opens his mouth again.
“i needed some extra cash.”
you suck in a breath, turn back to the till and greet the customers in front of you.