When the door closes behind you, Armin looks like the embodiment of pure awkwardness. He’s pressed into the corner, and you can almost hear the gears in his head spinning at an alarming speed.
“The… ventilation in here isn’t great,” he says quietly, his voice just slightly unsteady.
Three minutes pass. You decide to take matters into your own hands and step closer, brushing your fingers against his. Armin flinches, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he laces his fingers with yours, his grip surprisingly firm, almost unyielding.
“You know,” he murmurs, leaning in so close his soft blond hair grazes your cheek, “they say in books that when it’s dark, your other senses sharpen. Like touch.”
His free hand moves slowly, painfully slowly, up your forearm, sending a wave of goosebumps across your skin. Then, suddenly, he shifts, switching your positions so you’re the one pressed against the wall, with him hovering over you.
He doesn’t kiss you right away. Instead, his lips find the sensitive spot just behind your ear, trailing down toward your collarbone. The faint graze of his teeth makes you gasp despite yourself. His hand slips under the edge of your jacket, his palm cool at first, then burning as it settles against the bare skin of your waist.
Armin kisses like he’s running an experiment, mapping your reactions with careful precision, finding exactly what makes you melt. He guides your hands up onto his shoulders, pulling you closer until there’s no space left between you, and it hits you all at once that this “quiet boy” might be more dangerous than any of the others.
A knock on the door makes him pause.
He pulls back just a fraction, his eyes in the dim light looking darker, deeper than usual. His gaze lingers on your lips, slightly swollen now from his touch.
“Theoretically, time’s up,” he whispers, slowly straightening your clothes with almost unsettling care. “But practically… I’ll find a way to continue this somewhere more appropriate. Later.”
He steps out of the closet wearing a polite smile, and no one in the room has the slightest idea what kind of fire he just left behind.
↻ if armin just surprised you in the best way
♡ how long would you have lasted in there with him?
fic here ♡
ao3 ✧
wattpad ✧
#armin arlert #armin x reader #aot armin #snk armin #7 minutes in heaven #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot scenarios #armin smut
— do not repost without credit, thank you my loves ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
— ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ — 7 minutes in heaven with jean kirstein — ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ —
Jean steps into the closet like a man who’s completely in control of the situation. He leans back against the door, crosses his arms, and throws on that usual smirk, trying to joke his way through the tension.
“So, enjoying the company of the best guy in the Cadet Corps?” he scoffs. But even in the dim light, you catch the way he nervously adjusts his bangs.
Two minutes pass, and the silence thickens. Jean drops the act. You can smell his cologne, clean and sharp, mixed with the faint scent of freshly washed uniform. When your knee accidentally brushes his thigh, he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth.
“Alright… enough playing around,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly lower, rougher.
He steps closer. The air in the closet turns hot. Jean plants one hand against the wall beside your head, cutting off any easy escape. His gaze isn’t teasing anymore. It’s heavy, locked on your lips.
By the fifth minute, there’s no space left between you.
His free hand comes up slowly, resting against your neck, thumb tracing along your jaw. He pauses for just a second, like he’s savoring it, then kisses you with a kind of desperate intensity he’s been hiding behind all those sarcastic remarks.
His fingers slide into your hair, tugging gently, forcing your head to tilt back. His other hand pulls you in by the waist so firmly you can feel the buckle of his belt and the rough fabric of his jacket.
A knock from outside breaks through, voices calling for you to clear out the “space.” Jean pulls away reluctantly, breathing hard, his lips still slightly parted, his face flushed.
“Damn it,” he mutters, pressing a quick, lingering kiss to your temple. “Seven minutes shouldn’t feel that short. That was torture.”
He steps out first, straightening his jacket like nothing happened, pointedly avoiding Connie’s snickering. But the bright red tips of his ears give him away completely.
↻ if jean just stole your heart in a closet
♡ how long would you have lasted with him?
fic here ♡
ao3 ✧
wattpad ✧
#jean kirstein #jean kirschtein #jean x reader #aot jean #snk jean #7 minutes in heaven #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot scenarios
— do not repost without credit, thank you my loves ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
Closet time with Reiner isn’t just cramped, it’s suffocating. He’s massive. His broad shoulders take up almost all the space, leaving you wedged awkwardly between his knees while he tries to figure out where to even put his hands.
The first few minutes pass in heavy silence. You can hear his uneven breathing. Reiner stares somewhere above your head, fists clenched so tight his knuckles go pale.
“You shouldn’t be this close to me,” he says quietly. “This is a bad idea.”
The words don’t match the way his pupils widen when your hand brushes against his by accident.
By the fifth minute, something in him snaps.
He exhales sharply and steps forward, erasing what little space you had left. His hands land on your waist, lifting you just enough to press you firmly against the wall. There’s strength in every movement, controlled but barely.
“To hell with it,” he growls, crashing his lips against yours.
His hands slide lower, confident, possessive, bunching the fabric of your clothes. You can feel the heat of him even through the layers, and it’s intense enough to make your knees threaten to give out.
Laughter and voices outside break through, someone calling that time’s up. Reluctantly, Reiner pulls back. He leans his forehead against the wall right beside your face, breathing hard as he tries to steady himself.
For a brief second, his gaze softens, almost vulnerable, before the soldier’s mask slips back into place.
“Try not to look at me like that in front of the others,” he murmurs, straightening your collar with slightly unsteady fingers. “Or I’ll drag you right back in here.”
↻ if reiner just broke your brain in 7 minutes
♡ how long would you have lasted before folding completely?
#reiner braun #reiner x reader #aot reiner #snk reiner #7 minutes in heaven #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #reiner smut #aot scenarios
fic here ♡
ao3 ✧
wattpad ✧
— do not repost without credit, thank you my loves ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
— ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ — 7 minutes in heaven with eren yeager — ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ —
The darkness inside the closet feels almost tangible. There’s barely any space, so you’re practically pressed into Eren’s chest. You can feel his heartbeat pounding wildly — or maybe it’s yours. In this cramped silence, the line between you blurs until it barely exists.
For the first few minutes, Eren says nothing. He breathes heavily into your hair, and you can feel his hands — rough from training — hovering just inches from your waist, like he’s holding himself back by force. He’s trying to stay in control, but the heat radiating off him tells a different story.
“It’s too tight in here,” he mutters hoarsely, his voice brushing right against your ear, sending a shiver down your spine.
By the fourth minute, he gives in.
His hand slides to the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair as he pulls you closer. He leans down, and you feel his warm breath ghost over your lips.
“You do realize I’m not just going to stand here and wait for time to run out?”
He kisses you — rough, desperate, like he’s trying to steal every bit of oxygen left in the tiny space. His free hand moves to your thigh, gripping the fabric tight as he presses you harder against the wall, leaving no room to move, no space to think.
When the door cracks open, letting in a thin line of light, Eren doesn’t pull away right away. He stills, his forehead resting against yours, eyes burning with that dangerous spark that always comes before a storm.
“One more second, and I would’ve locked that door from the inside,” he breathes out, before stepping back into the noise of the room, leaving you behind — shaking in the dark.
↻ if this lives in your head rent free now
♡ tell me how many minutes you would’ve lasted before folding
#eren yeager #eren jäger #eren x reader #aot eren #snk eren #7 minutes in heaven #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #eren smut #aot scenarios
fic here ♡
ao3 ✧
wattpad ✧
— do not repost without credit, thank you my loves ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
i think because of the whole "writers write for themselves" notion that's becoming increasingly popularized, people forget that we still thrive off interaction and kindness. i write for myself but kudos and comments and bookmarks and really any sort of interaction with my fics genuinely motivates me to keep writing and keep sharing my works.
— ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ — erwin smith | grief worn like a perfectly tailored uniform — ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ —
He becomes ruthlessly efficient once you’re gone. Schedule tighter than any military campaign, shirts pressed to knife-edge creases, coffee measured with the same precision he once used for battle plans. To anyone watching he is the picture of composure. Only he knows the mornings now begin with a silent, private ceremony: fingers on the collar button you used to undo with a teasing smile, saying he looked too severe. He fastens it anyway. Even that small softness feels like a betrayal of the discipline he has left.
Your old conversations live in his head in perfect formation: every joke, every quiet “come home safe,” every late-night murmur when you thought he was asleep. He doesn’t reread them; he recites them. Files them by date and emotional weight so nothing spills over. The system is flawless. The drowning is merely orderly.
He no longer walks the routes you once shared. Not because he fears seeing you. He fears the opposite: that the city will smell exactly the same and he will be the only thing out of place.
Some nights, long after the building is empty, he catches himself speaking aloud to the dark offices. Short, measured sentences meant only for you. “You would call this plan sentimental.” “You would tell me to rest.” He stops mid-word, spine snapping straight, as though someone had walked in and caught him being human.
He finds your new life in fragments the algorithm pretends are random. A photograph where you’re laughing the way you never quite managed beside him. He stares until the screen dims, then stares some more. The realisation lands softly, like a verdict delivered in private: you were supposed to look that free forever, and he was the reason you didn’t.
When he learns you’ve begun to see someone else, he is always the last to be told. His reaction is the quietest in the room. Externally: a nod, a polite “I’m glad,” nothing more. Internally: a single, slow collapse; like an ancient oak finally giving in to rot, somewhere no one will ever hear it fall.
He didn’t lose you to war.
He lost you to the aftermath: one perfectly pressed collar, one perfectly empty evening at a time.
↻ if erwin smith’s silent devastation just rearranged your ribcage
♡ which line made you forget how to breathe for a second
— do not repost without credit, thank you my loves ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
— ✧ ⋆｡˚ ☁︎ unpopular opinion: fanfic clichés that make me close the tab in 0.2 seconds ☁︎ ˚｡⋆ ✧ —
(no hate to anyone who loves or writes these, just the little things that instantly tell me “this one isn’t for me”. we all have our deal-breakers <3)
♡ the “they read books therefore they’re deep and mysterious” trope
reading is cool!! but when a character is handed a random copy of dostoevsky just to scream “smart enigmatic loner” and it never actually influences their personality, choices, or dialogue… it feels like a cardboard prop. give me a character who dog-ears pages, argues about the ending, or weaponises quotes in everyday conversation or don’t bother.
♡ dead (or cartoonishly evil) parents as free angst points
disney traumatised us all, i get it. but when every single parent is either conveniently dead or a one-dimensional monster with zero nuance, it stops feeling tragic and starts feeling lazy. i promise the character can still be sympathetic without turning them into an orphan/martyr.
♡ the random rival who exists solely to block the ship
the second the main pairing gets cute, some third character materialises out of thin air just to be possessive and petty. no personality, no real motivation, just “i’m the obstacle, fear me.” instant immersion killer.
♡ trauma-dumping as a substitute for actual character development
there’s a difference between a character who’s been through hell and a character whose entire personality is “collect all the tragedies!!” when the suffering is just piled on for pity points and never shapes their current behaviour in believable ways… i’m out.
♡ 5k-word flashbacks that could’ve been one line of dialogue
if the only purpose of the flashback is to explain something that could’ve been conveyed in two sentences of present-day conversation, why are we time-travelling? reveal the past through how it still bleeds into the now. otherwise it’s just pacing homicide.
these are my personal “❌ nope” buttons. the second i spot more than two of them, i’m wishing the author well and peacefully exiting stage left.
what are yours? no judgment, i just love knowing i’m not alone in my petty hill ♡
♡ The breakup was “mutual” in name only. Armin was the one who sat you down, voice gentle and steady, and delivered the verdict he’d calculated a thousand nights in a row: you’d already reached the peak. Any longer and the curve would bend downward — resentment, exhaustion, slow hatred. Better to end it while it was still beautiful. He smiled when he said it, eyes red, and told you he was doing it for both of you. He still wakes up at 3 a.m. wondering if logic has ever felt this much like murder.
♡ He re-reads every single book, manga, and comic you ever shoved into his hands. Even the ones he pretended to like just to see you light up. Now he reads them alone, tracing the panels you dog-eared, mouthing the lines you used to quote in that dramatic voice. It’s the closest thing he has left to the sound of you being happy in the same room as him. Sometimes he catches himself smiling at a page and immediately feels sick for it.
♡ You never removed him from Close Friends, and he treats that privilege like it’s made of glass. When a story screams “I’m not okay” (a sad song, a black-and-white selfie, a vague lyric), he reacts within minutes. One heart emoji, one short “this song always destroys me too,” never more, never about him, never begging for conversation. He still understands your emotional weather better than anyone, and he’s terrified of the day you finally take that privilege away.
♡ Every new shirt, jacket, or bottle of cologne goes through the same silent test: *Would she have said this looks good on me?* He tells himself it’s just habit, but he still buys the exact shade of blue you once called “your ocean.” Still picks the scents that made you lean into his neck without thinking. His entire wardrobe is quietly curated by a girl who isn’t there anymore, and he hates how comforting that feels.
He ended it because the numbers said it was kinder.
Turns out some equations can’t measure the size of the hole left behind.
♡ which one made you want to shake him and hug him at the same time
more pain this way ♡
reiner version → here
jean version → here
eren version → here
levi version → here
— do not repost without credit, thank you my darlings ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
non-writers will never understand the mental illness of writing an entire conversation in your head while doing dishes and then forgetting every word the second you open a blank doc
— ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ — reiner braun | post-breakup headcanons that feel like getting punched in the soul — ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ —
♡ He left because he’s completely, terrifyingly convinced he’s poison. That his depression, his anxiety, the constant war inside his head would eventually spill over and destroy the one good thing he ever had: you. “I don’t want to ruin you” was the last thing he said, voice cracking, before he walked out. What he never told you: a tiny, pathetic part of him still prays every night that one day you’ll knock on his door and prove him wrong; because being loved by you was the only time he ever felt like a person instead of a walking battlefield.
♡ He physically cannot stop himself from “accidentally” passing through your orbit. That coffee shop you loved, the bench in the park where you used to split pastries; he takes the longest routes just for the microscopic chance of seeing you. The second he spots you he panics: hides behind a menu like a 6'5 giant can disappear, pretends to be on an urgent call, or just freezes and stares at a random tree like it holds the answers to life. If your eyes meet, his entire face collapses. One shaky “hey… sorry” and he’s gone before you can even process it.
♡ In his mind you’ve become untouchable. Mythical. The relationship is preserved in amber: every tiny domestic moment elevated to scripture. When the darkness swallows him whole (and it does, often), he doesn’t call anyone. He just lies in bed replaying the boring, perfect memories on loop: your head on his chest during some random Netflix marathon, the way you stirred boxed mac & cheese at 3 a.m., the soft little noises you made when you were half-asleep. Those moments are his only proof that he was ever capable of being good.
♡ Your contact is still in his phone exactly as it was. Still speed-dial #1. He will never use it. He’ll never change his own number either. It’s the quietest, most desperate promise he’s ever made: If the world ever gets too heavy and you need him; truly need him; he’ll come running. No questions. No hesitation. Even if you hate him. Even if it destroys him all over again.
He left to save you from the monster.
He just never figured out the monster would miss you the most.
♡ which one made you want to hug him and scream at him at the same time
more pain this way ♡
jean version → here
eren version → here
levi version → here
— do not repost without credit, thank you my angels ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
— ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ — jean kirstein | post-breakup headcanons that are quietly devastating — ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ —
♡ He never unfollowed you. Never will. Every new photo you post gets a casual like from him within the hour; no caption, no comment, just that little orange heart. To you it probably feels cold, like he’s already over it. In reality it’s the exact opposite: it’s the only way his pride lets him say “I see you’re okay and I’m glad” without ever crossing the line he drew himself. Liking your posts is his silent version of checking in, the safest way he’s found to still care out loud.
♡ He asks about you in the group chat like it’s nothing. “Hey, how’s everyone doing? ___ doing alright?” If any mutual friend mentions you’re struggling (money, health, anything), he’ll quietly solve it. Sends someone with cash, fixes your car through a “friend of a friend,” pays a bill under a fake name. You’ll never know it was him. That’s the rule he gave everyone: you’re not allowed to thank him, because he’s not allowed to need your gratitude.
♡ The breakup lit a fire under him. Promotions, raises, new apartment, gym gains; everything happened fast. People think he “glowed up” to spite you. Truth is, every milestone is accompanied by the same thought: *This is the version of me you deserved.* He’s building the life he should’ve given you back then, even if you’ll never live in it. Sometimes he imagines running into you and casually dropping how well he’s doing, just so you’d know. He never says it out loud.
♡ He doesn’t keep hoodies, letters, or playlists. The only thing he kept is the memory of your very last fight; not the big explosive one, but the small, stupid, exhausted argument that actually ended everything. He replays it on loop when he’s alone: the exact sentence where he could’ve shut up, the moment he should’ve reached for you instead of turning away. He tortures himself with the “what if I’d said this instead” versions so he never forgets why he lost you. It’s his self-inflicted life sentence: remember the mistake so you never dare hope again.
He moved on the only way he knows how:
by becoming someone you could’ve been proud of, while making damn sure you’ll never have to see the proof.
more pain this way ♡
previous eren post-breakup hcs → here
previous levi post-breakup hcs → here
— do not repost without credit, thank you darlings ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
✦ Modern Earth AU ┊ eventual multi-chapter holiday fic
✦ Teen ┊ season 1 cast ┊ no titan spoilers yet
✦ pure winter vibes, soft angst, and one very tired Connie
December 30th.
The fire is dying.
Connie makes a wish on a falling star he isn’t even sure is real.
Then the sky answers back in blinding blue.
(aka the “what if they got one single day without Titans” fic that has been living in my head rent-free)
just the first ~2.5k words for now, because the holidays are coming and i’m emotionally compromised about these kids ♡
read the prologue/chapter 1 below the cut ❄️
Outside the rundown Survey Corps headquarters, the wind howled like a wounded animal, slipping through every crack and making the wooden window frames rattle. The walls reeked of old timber, damp, and despair, whistling in different pitches as if whispering about the storm that was coming. This long-awaited night was supposed to bring some peace, but Connie felt like cats were clawing at his insides. A sharp, gnawing anxiety crawled up his throat, and it felt like any second now it would rip right through his chest.
The rest of the squad had been out cold for hours, beaten down by the biting winter and brutal training. Their sleep was heavy, dead to the world. Everyone except Connie. He sat curled up with his knees to his chest in the common room, watching the last logs in the fireplace crackle and die.
December 30th. New Year’s Eve tomorrow. The thought felt alien, like it belonged to someone else’s life. Lately there hadn’t been room for holidays. Still, Connie ached — actually ached — for the taste of his mom’s glazed ham, the one she made every New Year’s Eve. He could almost smell the smoke drifting from their tiny kitchen. They’d sit together — him, Mom, Dad, his little sister — around the beat-up old wooden table with the embroidered flower tablecloth, waiting for the clock to strike midnight and bring in January first. A new year. Not carefree, never that, but new.
Now it was just another date on a calendar that counted down to the next expedition outside the walls.
Even Captain Levi, who was usually ice-cold and unflappable, had been on edge for days. You could feel his tension hanging in the air like thick fog. Even Hange — crazy, unstoppable Hange — had gone quiet. No running around with blueprints, no bombarding him with questions. She just sat in the corner of the office staring at nothing, and somehow that was more unsettling than her usual chaos.
The fire was almost gone now, the crackling softer, the heat fading as the cold crept in from the corners. He should go back to his room and try to sleep — tomorrow would be another freezing, miserable day. But his legs wouldn’t move. Sleep avoided him like he was cursed.
Connie looked out the frost-laced window. Snowflakes danced in silence, falling on snow-covered rooftops and empty streets of the trapped city. And the stars — he’d thought they’d be hidden behind clouds — burned clear and sharp in the black sky, cold and distant and utterly indifferent.
One star broke loose, streaking down in a brief, doomed arc. Connie let out a slow breath, leaned forward on his hands, and closed his eyes.
“Just one night…” The thought echoed in his head. “One night without fighting. Just one… filled with quiet peace.”
Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed suddenly from the end of the hallway, yanking Connie out of his thoughts. He knew that walk — quick, precise. Captain Levi.
His heart slammed against his ribs. He bolted upright, moving as quietly as he could, and tiptoed down the hall on pure adrenaline. He slipped into the room he shared with Jean — who was dead asleep, face buried in his pillow, snoring softly — and eased the door shut behind him without a sound.
Levi really was pacing the sleeping building like a caged animal, looking for anywhere that might let him breathe for even a minute. Command was unhappy again — always unhappy — demanding the impossible. According to Erwin’s most conservative estimates, they didn’t even have enough supplies for half the next expedition. And the crushed, hollow look in the eyes of the young scouts he was leading to their deaths, the slump in their shoulders… it didn’t bode well.
He’d actually forgotten tomorrow was New Year’s Eve, lost in strategies, reports, and bleak projections. If Hange hadn’t muttered something this morning about an extra ration “for at least some kind of celebration,” he wouldn’t have remembered at all.
Levi stopped at the same window Connie had just left. The cold glass vibrated faintly with each gust of wind. He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of days, weeks, years pressing down on him like an invisible burden he couldn’t set down. A thin blade of icy air snuck through the crack and stung the back of his neck, but he barely registered it. Not now.
Then, in the dead silence, his exhausted, responsibility-crushed mind played a cruel trick.
A blinding flash exploded behind his closed eyelids — bright as a torch waved in front of his face. But the light wasn’t yellow or red. It was a piercing, electric blue, the kind that sometimes burns at the heart of a fire.
Levi’s eyes snapped open. For a split second, he could’ve sworn he saw a ghostly blue glow spreading through the air like ink in water — then it dissolved, leaving nothing behind.
The hallway was dark and empty again. Only the wind kept wailing outside.
“Definitely need sleep,” Levi thought, rubbing the bridge of his nose hard with thumb and forefinger. “Or I’m finally losing it.”
— ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ — eren yeager | post-breakup headcanons that live in my head rent free — ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ —
♡ He will never text first. Never. No matter how badly the silence is eating him alive, no matter how many nights he spends staring at your name in his contacts with a half-written “I miss you” that gets deleted a hundred times before he finally locks the screen. Pride, guilt, the crushing weight of everything he put you through; it all screams that he lost the right to disturb your peace the day he walked away.
♡ He has a burner account on every platform you’re on. Zero posts, zero followers, generic profile pic. He checks it religiously. One new story, one new profile picture, and he’s analysing every pixel for traces of sadness, tiredness, anything that might mean you’re not okay. If he finds even a shadow of it, he’s out running at 2 a.m. until his lungs burn, trying to outrun the thought that he’s still hurting you even when he’s gone.
♡ Out of everything you once shared, he only kept the stupidest, most meaningless thing: the spare key to your old apartment (or mailbox, or P.O. box; doesn’t matter). It’s not even useful anymore. He keeps it buried in the deepest corner of his wallet like contraband. Some nights his fingers brush against the cold metal and his chest seizes so hard he can’t breathe. Throwing it away feels impossible; keeping it feels like punishment he deserves.
♡ The first time he sees a photo of you with someone new, two feelings hit him at once. The first is raw, ugly jealousy that makes him want to put his fist through a wall. The second is worse: relief. Bone-deep, nauseating relief that you’re smiling again, that someone else is making you happy. He stalks the guy’s profiles for days anyway (fake accounts, private stories, mutual friends). If there’s even a hint the dude isn’t treating you like you deserve, Eren’s one impulsive second away from sending you an anonymous “he’s not good for you” message he’ll never forgive himself for.
He left to protect you from his chaos.
Turns out the chaos followed him home and just learned your name in a different language.
↻ if you also have eren brainrot that requires therapy
♡ tell me which one made you stare into the void the longest
more pain this way ♡
previous levi post-breakup → right here
— do not repost without credit, thank you my loves ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ —
— ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ — levi ackerman | post-breakup headcanons that hurt so good — ✧ ⁺ ❀ ⁺ ✧ —
♡ He’s a workaholic on a level that should be studied. The reason he left you was simple, at least to him: he couldn’t split his focus between you and the obsessive pursuit of absolute perfection. Now the “Recon Corps” chain is thriving — spotless counters, flawless latte art, terrified but impeccably trained staff — and yet every single day is just the same loop of washing dishes, tasting espresso, correcting someone’s tamp pressure… anything to keep his mind too busy to think about you.
It never works. You’re still the background noise in every silence.
♡ There’s a secret menu item in every single café. Something with a boring, corporate-sounding name like “Survey Blend No. 7” or “Captain’s Reserve.” The baristas all know it’s yours — the ridiculous drink you once invented as a joke, or the one he used to make only for you when you waited for him after closing. If you ever walk in (no matter which branch), it’s on the house. And no matter where Levi actually is, even if he’s across the city doing inventory, he will drop everything and come make it himself. Hands steady, eyes unreadable, the same way he used to when it was just the two of you in the quiet before opening.
♡ He has your schedule memorized like battle plans. He doesn’t stalk — Levi Ackerman doesn’t lurk in shadows; but he knows exactly when you leave for work, when you take your evening walk, when you usually stop for groceries. Sometimes his car just “happens” to take the same route. He always has an excuse ready: checking a new supplier, inspecting a potential location. He just needs one second — one glimpse of you adjusting your scarf the way you always did, one proof that you’re safe, breathing, alive, smiling without him.
♡ After you left, he scrubbed the apartment until it was practically sterile. Anything that threatened to rip the scar open was thrown out or burned. Everything except one thing: your old, faded t-shirt, the one you used to sleep in. It’s folded with military precision in the deepest corner of the bottom drawer. On the worst nights he takes it out, presses it to his face for one desperate inhale of whatever ghost of your perfume still clings to the fabric, then immediately steps into an ice-cold shower to wash the scent and the sin — off his skin.
He left to protect you from his obsession.
Turns out the obsession just changed targets.
↻ if these made you stare at the wall for a little too long
