Disclaimer: Shingeki no Kyojin and its characters do not belong to me. I simply write for the pleasure and freedom of doing so.

Stifling a yawn, Levi made his way down to the eating hall, trying to keep himself awake by continuously blinking. He couldn't see the end of the hallway. His eyesight was growing blurry.

Shit, he thought, I might be blind by the end of this year.

No worries though, that fucking Four-eyes would just prescribe him some medicine to get rid of it. So Levi dismissed another problem of his gradually-getting-shittier eyesight.

If it was only the end of the hallway was blurry to the corporal, then how was he going to spot a titan from a distance? Everything was just getting worse without his mate.

Despite having a degrading eyesight due to the lack of sleep, the raven-haired man could sense a ruckus going on in the dining area. The words "dining area" seemed too formal for what the room actually was. A more appropriate phrase would be "a brat daycare center".

Actually, the entire castle was a damn brat daycare center, and there just happen to be rooms for specific purposes.

For example, the kitchen was for feeding the brats. The classroom was for teaching the brats. The bathroom was for taking a piss and shit with the brats. The offices, quite deserted, still needed to be cleaned by the brats. The basement was where his mate stayed. His room was where he'd fuck his mate and-

I swear this "mate thing" is crazy, Levi thought, running a tired hand through his hair. Eren Jaeger wasn't just stealing his sleep. Nope.

He was taking his everything.

Because technically, Eren was his everything.

When he entered, the corporal made absolutely sure that all the people in the dining hall noted his presence so they could quiet it down. The eyes of the 104th trainees squad were all wide-eyed as they stared at him as he walked around to look for a vacant chair.

Levi's eyes scanned the dining hall, hoping to meet eyes with a certain brown-haired boy. But to his surprise, his ma- the titan-shifter brat hadn't come out for breakfast yet.

"LEVIIIIII!"

Oh shit. That fucking four-eyes.

"LEVI! SIT HERE!"

And into a seat he was pulled.

His eyes moved through the dining hall again before angrily setting looking upon Hange. Normally, shit like this wouldn't get him so worked up. But when you have had little to no sleep for the past two months, irritation would start to mix with your blood.

Grumbling to himself, Levi cursed the world.

Honestly, if he were in a less tired and irritated state, he would have found another spot on an empty table and read a few damn documents that Erwin had thrust upon him the day before.

"Levi! How're things with your mate?" The corporal could feel Hange's four eyes (haha) on him as he prepared himself some black, bitter coffee. He needed a fuckload of coffee today.

Levi tried to ignore her question, but she was persistent in making him feel uncomfortably watched all the time. Letting out a deep sigh, he felt like he should be honest with her. Even if he wasn't going to admit it to her because of his ever growing pride, he did need help.

"It's honestly shit." Hange's eyes grew wide with awe as he moved to settle down in his seat with his newly-brewed coffee. She was at a loss of words because Levi wasn't usually this open about his problems. That is, until now. He would always put off the idea of a mate, telling him mates were useless and that he would get together with Eren over his cold, dead, titan-eaten corpse.

"Don't make your eyes look wider than they already are." Levi snorted, obviously noting her astonishment at his words.

Suddenly, just as he was about to take a sip from his coffee, a wave of fatigue washed over Levi's body. The corporal hastily and clumsily put down the cup, and a bit of coffee spilled from the edges onto the wooden table. When he was about to wipe the spillage, someone beat him to it.

"Jesus, Levi, let me do it. You're tired as hell so don't do anything." And with that she began to gently pat at the wet droplets. From her own experience with Moblit, Hange knew how difficult it was to be going through the consequences of not being with your mate. Like Levi, she had put off the idea of her mate when she felt it, but when the first symptoms of the personal hell had reigned on her, which was her becoming too emotional and moddy, she instantly succumed to the mate ideology. Unlike Levi, she was always open to the knowledge of a mate, it was just that Hange felt like she was too young and focused at the moment to pursue him. Her original plan was to wait for a while did not work, nor would waiting work for anyone else as well.

But it was harder for Levi now. Because he's put it off for two and a half years, he'd been going through the personal hell. Plus, he still continues to fight it. But Hange could see it was breaking him inside, and that he needed any advice that she could offer.

Out of the three of them (AKA Erwin, Levi, Hange), it had always been Hange who had a positive outlook on a mate. Being a scientist and a doctor, it was evident in her research on human beings that mates brought more pros than cons. If a person were to get together with his/her mate, he/she would have a faster healing process, a person to bond with (not just a fuck buddy), constant protection from each other, and generally, a happier disposition in life. Those were only a few pros mentioned out of many.

The worst cons were jealousy and death. The person who is jealous of his/her mate, depending on the personality, could cause harm to the people that were deemed trying to steal the mate away. Also, if the mate were to die, the person would most likely go crazy, and/or kill himself/herself. Mates needed to die together, stated an ancient Chinese proverb.

Sadly, since Levi found Hange 5% more annoying than Erwin, he decided to stick with Erwin's mate advice; which was to continue living normally and ignore any feeling regarding his mate. Erwin was not speaking from experience though, because the Commander never had the "mate feeling" yet.

Hange, although quite crazy and titan obsessed, was never really one to shove her opinions down other people's throats; so she never forced the corporal to take any action with his mate. However, now that it was affecting Levi, she felt like she needed to put her foot down.

"Levi, I think it's time you've done something. I've been telling you that you need to tell him already. Eren isn't a dumb boy when it comes to this. I can even help if you want. Don't listen to Erwin for once." Hange broke the silence after she cleaned the spillage. He needed help, and she was going to help him, whether he wanted it or not. It surprised her that after her previous statement about him not doing anything, he had not responded or pushed her away so he'd be the one to clean it instead.

Running a hand through his hair and grunting roughly, Hange could properly see the eyebags on his tired face.

"I told you Hange, he doesn't know shit about me being his mate yet. It might seem like I'm forcing him to be my mate if I suddenly walk up to him and go 'well golly gee, Jaeger, looks like we're mates and we have to fuck now so that I can properly sleep and slay titans. Yay. Annihilate together.' Four-eyes, I refuse to do anything without him knowing first." Levi ended his rant with a huff. It was the first time in a long time that he'd spoken so much about his feelings and thoughts in a single conversation. But then again it was his first time feeling this shitty too.

But as Levi finished his little rant, a fact had come in to Hange's view that made him 100% wrong.

You see, the table that Hange and the corporal were seated, despite being far away from the entrance of the dining area, was situated in a way that they could see everything going on in the room. However, in that situation, it was really Hange who could see everything, since Levi's back was turned away from the room.

This made the corporal totally oblivious to the younger man who entered the dining area. He came in with his closest friend and his adopted sister. The trainee who, like Levi but wasn't as bad, had growing eyebags, hunched shoulders, a tired face, and undoubtedly sleepless eyes.

Yes, Eren Jaeger entered the dining hall.

It will not be only three chapters long.

~R