Wanderlust

Chapter 4

"Can you drive any faster?"

Armin sighed for the umpteenth time since picking up his friend from his dorm, "It's a parking lot, Eren, driving faster wouldn't get us a space any sooner."

Eren glanced at the clock on the dashboard again, drumming his fingers nervously against the window and looking around the small mall parking lot for somewhere, anywhere, to park.

"There!" He exclaimed, pointing out a car that was pulling out.

"May I remind you," The blonde began as he put on his blinker, signaling he was going to turn into the spot, "That I was early to pick you up. You were the one who overslept and then changed his outfit at least five times before I dragged you out the door." He started to pull into the now vacated space, "Besides, we are only seven minutes late, that's amazing with your record."

This was all true. Eren was the one who had been a wreck, he had stayed up to nearly four in the morning, unable to sleep because of the nerves of meeting the man he would be traveling with for three weeks. He had overslept passed his first alarm and the second woke him with barely enough time to shower before Armin had arrived.

Armin had been the model friend, showing up twenty minutes early and helping Eren through his clothing crisis (the brunet had been avoiding doing his laundry and had next to no clean clothes), and even dragging him out the door when he started to change again. He had ended up wearing exactly what he always wore, a pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt. Even though he knew he wasn't expected to dress up or anything, he felt too casual.

Shouldn't he been dressed better to meet the person he would be traveling with for so long? Should he really feel this nervous?

Hanji had told him more about the other man so he wouldn't be going in completely blind, but that only made his nerves worse. According to her, Levi was a grumpy, 27-year old genius who worked too much, really needed to get a social life, cleaned obsessively, and was a complete and utter ass.

Obviously it was normal for Eren to be a bit apprehensive about the man.

Any sane person would be.

He was about to meet a stranger with whom he was going to be spending 3 weeks with, yet he was more anxious than he had thought he would be. I need to calm down. Just trust Hanji, she is positive that we'll get along.

He took a deep breath. Armin was right, seven minutes wasn't that big of a deal, but he had a feeling that Levi wasn't the kind to tolerate tardiness.

"Thanks, Armin," The brunet mumbled to his friend as they headed in the direction of the restaurant dubbed as the meeting place. Some place called Titan's that neither of them had ever heard of or been to.

"Anytime!" Was his friend's cheerful reply. Armin's casual tone put Eren as ease, reminding him that in all honesty this meeting wasn't that big of a deal. The worst that could happen was that Levi would hate him, he wouldn't go to France, he would never leave Trost, and he'd be stuck in the same place his whole life without ever seeing the world. That train of thought isn't helping, Eren.

Scrambling to keep his nerves in check by finding something else to thing about, Eren was saved when his arms were suddenly full of another person's long limbs and a mess of brown hair.

"EREN!" Hanji squealed into his ear, nearly deafening in volume.

"H-hi Hanji." He wheezed as all the air was crushed out of his body with her iron grip. For such a skinny thing she was surprisingly strong.

"You must be Armin!" His attacker released him and he sucked in a deep breath, blinking the black spots out of his vision as she turned her attention to the poor boy beside him. "I'm Hanji, it's so nice to meet you! Eren told me that you'd be joining us, and I've been so excited about meeting one of his friends."