threads of intimacy ?ˋ°?*?? eren jaeger

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IT HAD BEEN A WEEK since you last sat beside him — one slow, careful week. The class only met once every seven days, but somehow, it lingered in your head like it didn't know that.

You thought about him in between things: when your roommate was talking, when your coffee was steeping, when your eyes glazed over in a late-night study session and your mind wandered. Not obsessively. Just... frequently enough to feel like an itch you couldn't place. There was something about the way Eren Jaeger moved through the world: silently, precisely, like he was constantly holding his breath beneath the surface of something deeper. Like he was waiting for something to go wrong.

The lecture hall was colder than usual. You noticed it the second you walked in, the air stiff with the kind of hush that didn't belong to silence, but to tension. The fluorescent lights hummed in a dull overhead whine, casting everything in their usual sterile glare. It always smelled faintly of dry-erase markers and the clay-like scent of worn-down linoleum.

You slid into your usual seat, feeling the sharp chill of the desk beneath your forearms, and Eren was already there. He didn't greet you, he never really did, but he gave a subtle glance in your direction, enough for the edge of his expression to soften before he returned his eyes to the front.

He hadn't spoken to you since the last class. But then again, you hadn't tried either.

Professor Laine stood at the podium with a stack of yellowing papers in her hands, her glasses perched low on her nose. She looked like someone who preferred the company of ideas to that of people, and you often wondered if that was why she taught this particular course.

Without preamble, she clicked the projector remote, and a quote appeared on the screen behind her in faded serif lettering:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable." — C.S. Lewis

Her voice filled the room, measured and calm. "This quote will serve as the spine of our discussion today. I want you and your partners to unpack it. Agree, disagree, dissect it. What does it mean to you? What does it mean to the person sitting next to you?"

She uncrossed her arms and took a step back, letting the silence do what it does best, expose everything you hadn't yet learned how to say.

The usual shuffle began. Whispered pairings, notebooks opening, the squeak of sneakers against waxed tile. You glanced at Eren.

He hadn't moved an inch.

His posture was relaxed but closed off, arms crossed loosely, one knee resting over the other, eyes fixed on the quote like it had been haunting him long before it ever found the projector. The fluorescent light washed across his profile, highlighting the curve of his jaw, the stillness of his expression.

You let a second pass before speaking, voice quiet but coaxing. "So? Agree or disagree?"

He turned toward you slowly, the movement fluid but deliberate, and for the first time in a week, your eyes met.

"Agree," he said simply.

There was no inflection. Just certainty. Like he'd already spent hours with the question.

You blinked. You weren't sure what you'd expected. Maybe a shrug, maybe silence, but not that. Not his voice, low and clear and sure.

"Okay," you said, trying not to sound too caught off guard. "Why?"

His eyes dropped to the desk. One of his fingers tapped lightly against the wood, a slow, rhythmic beat, more thoughtful than fidgety. When he spoke again, it was like he was reciting something he'd only recently accepted.

"Because love without risk isn't love," he said. "It's control."

The line hung in the air between you, weighty and calm, like a confession without the guilt.

You hadn't expected that either.

There was something about the way he said it, not bitter, not jaded, but heavy. Like it had cost him something to believe it.

"Well," you said after a beat, rotating your pen between your fingers, "I'm not sure I do agree."

His gaze returned to yours. There was no challenge in it, just curiosity.

"I think love can be safe. That it's supposed to be. Comforting," you went on, not quite defensive, but firm. "It shouldn't feel like... jumping off something."

He tilted his head, and a few strands of hair slipped into his eyes. "It's not supposed to," he said. "But it does."

There was no malice in his voice, just quiet realism. Like he wasn't trying to win the argument, only present a truth he couldn't unlearn.

"I guess," you said, brow furrowing slightly, "I just don't think vulnerability should be the price of love. Or maybe I'm just not willing to hand that over so easily."

He was quiet for a second. Then, in a tone gentler than you expected, he replied, "That's the point. No one wants to."

His words didn't sting, but they sank. Not like a sharp breath, more like a slow drop of ink into water, bleeding through you with steady calm.

You studied him.

Eren wasn't unreachable, that wasn't quite it. He was emotionally mature, startlingly so, but it felt like everything he said was delivered from behind a locked door. You could hear the depth in his voice. You just couldn't reach the room it came from.

"So what," you said, "you think love has to hurt to be real?"

His eyes held yours. Not piercing, not cold, just aware, in a way that felt undeserved. Like he was seeing too much, too fast.

"No," he said. "I think the risk of it hurting is what makes it real. It's like... holding something fragile in your hands. You don't squeeze it too tight, but you don't hold it too loose either. You just accept that at any second, it might fall."

You didn't know what to say to that. Not really. The words slipped under your skin, deeper than you expected them to go, and sat there like a weight. You glanced back down at your page and realized you hadn't written a single word.

"That's... bleak," you said finally, your voice a bit quieter now.

His lips quirked, not a full smile, but something that flickered like it might've once been one.

"It's honest."

You leaned back in your seat, your heartbeat just slightly out of rhythm.

"Maybe you've just had the wrong kind of love."

The moment stretched.

And then, softly, "Maybe."

When the class ended, most students filed out with the energy of release, scraping chairs and rustling papers and chasing freedom. You stayed behind, slower than the rest, not sure why.

Eren didn't move either. He stood with that same careful stillness, backpack still slung loosely over one shoulder, staring at the door like he hadn't decided whether to walk through it yet.

"You're not wrong," he said eventually. His voice was low, his eyes still on the exit. "Love should feel safe. I think maybe I just don't trust the word anymore."

Then he walked away.

Not fast. Not abruptly. Just... like someone who didn't expect you to follow.

You didn't.

Instead, you lingered in your chair with the quote still glowing faintly above the empty room, your pen resting useless in your fingers.

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

And you were starting to realize, Eren Jaeger didn't fear intimacy. He feared what followed it. And it wasn't that he didn't feel. It was that he felt everything deeply, quietly, and in silence.