Broomstick

Eren has never been the type of person to submit to jealousy. He's had to manage dealing with his friends becoming friendly with people other than himself, with watching the higher ups stuffing their faces with food and luxuries while he had barely a morsel to his name, and with not being able to sleep in a regular bed like the rest of his comrades. Even with all of these occurrences that have torn him apart from everyone else, have made him undeniably different, he still maintains a calm and composed demeanor, with a lack of coveting feelings or jealousy of the like.

Except for when it's cleaning day.

It's not uncommon for Eren to get paired up with his Corporal during their cleaning duty. The soldier of higher rank had been assigned the task watching over him at all hours of the day, so it would only make sense that they shared the same room to clean in. But that's where things started to go wrong, and that's where Eren began becoming acquainted with a deadly sin that he had never come into contact with before.

The answer is envy.

The young soldier had to bite his tongue, whenever his eyes had unintentionally met the hands of his superior. Those long fingers, how they coiled around an object with exact precision, claiming it as his very own. His knuckles, and the way that they had curved and had bent to create the perfect angle, it left him in a sweat. But lastly, there were his palms, and as they stroked up and down the thick, sanded wood of his broomstick, Eren felt as if he were about to lose it.

That's right. Eren was completely jealous over a broomstick.

He hadn't known what had got into him, but all that was on his mind were such dark and gloomy thoughts. Why doesn't the Corporal touch me like that, he would think, or how come he's more gentle with a broomstick than he is with me? It was those kinds of thoughts that would get him into trouble, and as he neglected to realize the fact that he'd been staring into space for over a minute, his Corporal had snapped him right back into awareness, when he asked, "Eren, what are you doing? You're going to drop it."

Drop it? Drop what? Oh, that's right. There was a bucket of water in his hands. Well, was. Not anymore, because the second Corporal Levi had brought the item to his attention, he did exactly what he had been warned of in the place; he dropped it.

Water spilled all over the floor, and in a hurry to fix the mistake he had just made, Eren became a sputtering spazz. Suddenly, all of his selfish feelings had been replaced with ones that were frantic. "I'm so sorry, sir! I-I don't know what I was thinking!" Oh, but he knew exactly what he had been thinking. "I'll clean it up right away!"

Falling to his hands and knees, Eren had all to do but to keep his head screwed on straight as he began to mop up the floor with nothing but his bare palms and his pride. He was practically quaking in his boots, when he heard a distant sigh, followed by the sound of strong footsteps. Oh God, he began to panic, the Corporal is going to be furious with me for making an even bigger mess! What am I going to do? What am I going to-

"Honestly, Eren," Corporal Levi breathed, bending at the knee to meet the young soldier's gaze, "I don't know what's gotten into you, but even you should know that that's not how you properly clean up a spill. But, if anyone's going to retrain you on how to do it, it might as well be me."

Eren's heart was fluttering against his chest - the perfect pair, along with his frenzied thoughts - as his Corporal carefully took his hand into his own, lifted it slowly, and placed a small cloth right on top of the puddle that he had made. What came next only made his heart beat faster.

With a gentle pace, Corporal Levi placed both his and Eren's hand against the aged fabric of the cloth, and with even gentler strokes, began to sop up the water together. It was with an instructional tone that he soon stated, "I find it best to clean up spills in a slow, circular motion, rather than in a fast, back-and-forth sort of deal. You'll just make it worse that way."

Eren nodded at his Corporal's advice, and although he was listening, he wasn't really listening. He could hear the Corporal's voice, of course, but the sound of his heart ramming against his eardrums was much louder. Not only that, but there was an audible friction between their uniform jackets, and as their arms and shoulders rubbed up against one another, Eren could only swallow in anticipation of what else his Corporal would be willing to teach him. That "slow, circular" motion that the Corporal had mentioned must have been just the first step, right?

In the midst of Eren only half paying attention, he was asked, "Eren, are you even listening to me?"

Stammering out his response, the young soldier nodded his head and said, "O-of course! Of course I'm listening, sir!"

"Really? What was the last thing I said, then?"

Eren gulped. He couldn't remember. He honestly couldn't remember, but that didn't stop him from trying to provide him with an answer anyway. "Uh, slow, circular motions, sir?"

"I see." Eren hadn't heard him past that point, huh? Oh, well. He'd never know that his Corporal had complimented him on not just his handiwork, but on the softness of his complexion, too. "Let's keep at it then, shall we?"

Eren nodded, and even though he would remain blissfully unaware of his Corporal's kind words, he only seemed to care about one thing and one thing only, and it was the fact that Corporal Levi's hand was clasped onto his own just as delicately and just as affectionately as he was with his broomstick.

Hi there! Chappy here! :D

And today is Day 5 of Ereri Week, with the prompt of "Jealousy". I have a feeling that a lot of people have/are going to be drawing/writing really cracky things today just because...yeah. And I'm one of them! 8D

Even though this idea was kind of silly, I hope you all enjoyed it nonetheless!

And as always, thank you for taking the time to read! I really appreciate it! (:

- Chappy