If Only For A Little While

Solace

Levi

I stood in the auditorium for a few moments after Eren's form had faded out of my sight behind the door. With my hands in my pockets I walked to the entrance and heaved the heavy door open and leaving the desolate room behind me. I took a deep breath of air, closing my eyes and loosing myself in the memories of green eyes. Not just the ones of the troublesome student, but the eyes of a red headed little girl...

No, I thought shaking myself out of my thoughts. I wouldn't let myself think of her now. I hurriedly began walking in quick long strides, moving as quickly as my shorter legs would take me without running. I scowled in frustration. This would be a lot easier if I were taller.

I rushed in the direction of my classroom, panicked at the thought of what those unattended shits would do to it if I weren't there to maintain order. I could see their grimy hands spilling food and papers all over my clean floors. I quickened my pace until I was practically running.

To most of the student I seemed like an uncaring teacher. I rarely bothered to take special attention to a struggling student nor would I. I was rude to my students and treated them in a condescending manner. Yet even so I still found a certain joy in my work.

I didn't necessarily enjoy dealing with snot-nosed brats all day and I wasn't exactly passionate about algebraic equations either.

No I enjoyed my work for an entirely different reason, I enjoyed the solace it brought me. It was a distraction ser to say. When I was demonstrating how to properly graph a polynomial function, or when I was yelling at a student for trailing dirt into my pristine classroom, or even whenever I was grading endless piles of papers I was doing something other than thinking about myself. More importantly, I wasn't thinking about my past.

~~~~

"Big bro check this out" Izzy called out from atop a bunk bed. I looked up from mine and Farlan's card game on the dirty floor. When she saw I was watching Izzy began to hop lightly on the bed before transforming it into jumps that caused her choppy red hair to graze the plaster ceiling of the orphanage.

"Wow you can jump up and down, I'm appalled Iz. Completely in awe." I retorted dryly turning back to my hand of cards.

She pouted, "I haven't even done it yet, I was jumping to get ready you ass."

Farlan began laughing and I glared at him. Anyone else would have shit themselves if I'd looked at them like that, but not Farlan. He knew I'd never actually hurt him or Izzy.

"Here I go!" She squealed jumping one last time before doing a back flip from the top of one bed to another.

Farlan whistled, "Nice one Iz!"

She blushed at his praise before scrambling down to where I sat. Her green eyes were wide and sparkling with anticipation. "How'd I do big bro?"

I scratched my chin, pretending to have to think it over. The truth of the matter was her back flip was really cool, course I wasn't going to tell her that. Not yet anyway. "I don't know Izzy, you hesitated a bit before you jumped. It still needs work." She visibly deflated at my words. Her beautiful green eyes drooped and her head lowered a bit. She was too damn cute.

"Cut it out Levi," Farlan scolded before turning to address Izzy, "He really thought what you did was cool. He just likes to mess with you, isn't that right Levi?"

"You'r e such a killjoy," I grumbled, "Yeah it was really cool Iz, I was just teasing."

Izzy Perked up immediately, "You really thought so! I practiced for 4 weeks so that'd it'd be good enough to show you! I'm so happy you liked it!" She leapt forward closing the space between us and scattering Farlan and my card game. She wrapped her skinny little arms around my neck in a tight hug.

"Oi Izzy," I growled not returning her embrace, "You made a mess of our game."

"I'm sorry!" She quickly moved to clean up the mess, clumping the cards together in an uneven heap.

"Forget it Iz, let me do it." I collected the remainder of the cards and shuffled them quickly into an even stack, "But as punishment for making a mess you have to join us in our new game."

Her grin spread ear to ear, "Sure thing big bro!"

~~~

I'd stopped in front of my classroom door and gripped the doorknob, smiling at the memory. Isabel, my little sister.

The girl with the green eyes that I'd loved so dear.

I brushed the thought away. That was in the past. There was no point in dwelling on things that could not be fixed. I pushed open my classroom door to greet the rowdy bunch of brats that awaited me.

I cleared my mind of all thoughts of green eyes, and entered my solace.

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Whew, I had to rewrite this chapter twice because it got deleted because my phone glitched out on me. （−＿−；）

But it's A-okay now, I rewrote it on the computer.（＾∇＾）

Thanks as always for reading and comment with any errors or ideas of how I can improve my writing!

-KarinParker