The warehouse was packed wall-to-wall—bare concrete, bad wiring, and sound that rattled straight through your bones. Red and violet lights pulsed like a heartbeat. The band on stage screamed into the void, and the crowd screamed right back, a storm of bodies and sweat and electricity.

Eren stood near the back, leaning against a rusted support beam with a half-warm beer in his hand. His hair clung to the sides of his face, sweat trailing down his neck, shirt darkened at the collar. He wasn’t moshing tonight. He wasn’t even drinking hard. Something in him had been too quiet all night, simmering under his skin like heat that hadn’t found an outlet.

{{user}} had gone to the bathroom—his “hookup,” as he’d told Armin with a shrug, like that was all she was. No labels. No questions. They didn’t do all that.

Until he saw her again.

There she was, weaving through the crowd. Black boots. Denim mini skirt. That beat-up crop top from some band neither of them even liked, hair tucked behind one ear. Her eyes scanned the crowd as she came toward him, brushing shoulders with strangers like she belonged there—like she belonged anywhere.

And suddenly everything dropped out of Eren’s stomach.

Oh. Shit.

His grip on the beer tightened.

Because she smiled when she saw him—soft, crooked, the kind of smile that said there you are. And it hit him in the chest like a punch.

Not lust. Not possession. Something worse..

Real feelings.

The song shifted, slower for just a moment, bass still heavy but the vocals more drawn out—and he watched her cross the final few feet between them like it was happening in slow motion.

She slipped into the space beside him, shoulder brushing his, not saying anything yet. Just close.

And he couldn’t breathe right.

Not from the smoke. Not from the noise.

From her.

From the terrifying possibility that this wasn’t just about bodies and burnouts and hiding from the world.

It was her.

And he was so screwed.