Degenerate | Riren

XXII

Queen Of The Gas Station

⊱ | ✾ | ⊰

"Can I please, please go out shopping?" Eren asked, almost pleading to his mother as he peered up at her in excitement. She was on the windowsill of her room reading Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, while Eren was on the floor, in the middle of making a Sailor Moon spread and repainting over the already chipped nail polish on his toenails.

Carla stared at him intently for what seemed like forever, "After all your childish fracas?" Then narrowed her eyes at him to get some form of suspicious reaction. "You're grounded, remember?"

Hesitantly, he replied with: "But it's been two whole weeks! I promise I'll be home an hour before my curfew!"

"Why do you want to go so badly, honey?"

"It's almost my birthday!" he shoved his phone to her face, showing a cute advertisement of a new high-end shop that recently opened. "I have to find a dress!"

"Oh Eren, you and your spending sprees. . ." The old woman mumbled lowly, growing more worried about her son's financial capabilities.

"Please, Mom, everything has to be perfect!"

Temple resting on her fingertips, she contemplated for a moment. "Alright, you're officially ungrounde一"

"Yes!"

"That's if you do the laundry for a change, you've got two baskets waiting upstairs."

"Thanks, Mom!" he gave her an unceremonious kiss on the cheek before running out of the room carefully so as not to mess up the red of his wet toenails.

The dark-haired vixen frolicked around the house with the assigned household chore. Washing the dirty clothes and setting them out to hang dry. Upstairs, Eren changed into a gingham halterneck top and army green cargo pants. He smiled at Levi's black card which he slid into the pockets of his froggy crocheted sling bag just so he wouldn't forget.

"Bye, Mom!" Eren hollered, running nimbly down the stairs.

"What about lunch?"

"I ate the last of your butterscotch cookies!" he informed her as he hopped on a pair of Doc Martens.

"Be back before dinner!" she heeded. He let out an okay before dashing out the front door.

From the moment the marigold sun was bright in the sky accompanied by white-edged clouds, hazy smoke from neighboring chimneys rose into the atmosphere. A shiver ran across his sun-warmed skin, and he was instantly cold as ice. Incidentally, it was the same exact shiver he felt moments before he met Levi. The very same one that sent him scampering across the damp streets and into Mr. Arlert's library.

Rainwater slowly trickled down from the heavens and down Eren's bare face and shoulders as he passed vibrant orchids and winding trees. He loved gazing at the green of the external world in its fullness. As he walked, it instantly felt just as though he was transported straight into a fairytale. Or just about any strange and mystical place he could imagine一the otherworldly home of pixies. Were they real? Of course not. Eren knew the hair-raising tales of elfish fairies and spectral ships were but made-up stories his mother created to soothe him from the nightmares that threatened the cherubic peace of his dreams.