Levi unconsciously rubbed his thumb in circles on the side of his beer and contemplatively looked outside of the window where the sky had darkened and the dim light of the stars struggled to make their mark against the black background despite the light pollution. His eyes flicked to the half empty bottle of beer in his hand and he sighed. "I've got something I need to do," he muttered to his friends, his voice barely audible over the buzz of the crowded Shiganshina Club.

"You're not going to finish your drink?" Auruo asked with his eyebrows raised. "That's only your first drink and it's our last summer together before real life begins. Stay! Come celebrate before work comes and destroys us – especially you since you're taking over the family business, hot shot!" He shot Levi a knowing look.

"That's three month before that happens. Leave it. We barely graduated a couple of days ago," Levi said, rolling his eyes. He chugged the rest of his drink hastily, not even bothering to savor the taste of the bitter golden liquid. Levi wasn't really a beer guy. He set the glass down on the table with a clink. "Besides, I told you I had something to do."

Gunther grinned. "Is time of the essence for this particular 'thing' you have to do? You certainly look like a man on a mission."

Eld elbowed Auruo in the ribs and chuckled at the scowling Levi. "It's that time again. He has that look on his face."

Gunther's smile dropped off of his face and was replaced with a startled expression. "Really? You can't be serious." He took a long look at Levi's face and frowned deeply. "Jesus, Levi, you've only been dating her for a couple of months. She's pretty great too."

"You can't possibly tell that I'm going to break up with Rico just because of the look on my face," Levi said exasperatedly. "This is my face. I always look like this."

"No, no, no," Eld insisted. He stroked his chin, a smug smirk on his face. God, how Levi wished he could wipe that stupid smile off of his face with his fist. "See, you typically looked a lot more pissed off. Whenever you're contemplating a breakup you look a lot more pensive and stare off into the distance more, like when you were gazing out the window just a minute ago."

"And you are breaking up with her, right?" Auruo asked tentatively.

"Yes," Levi said grudgingly. He'd been friends with these guys for years but he was a still little bit ashamed of how easily he could be read by them. Then again, they had been around long enough to know his pattern and exactly when he was itching to get out of a relationship.

"I knew it," Eld said triumphantly, obviously quite pleased with himself. He offered his hand out to Gunther for a high five but Gunther just gave him a disapproving look. Instead he propped his chin in his hand, his elbow sitting on the table. "So what did Rico do to tick you off? Did she eat in your car? Take of a sip of your drink using your straw? Have a speck of dirt under her fingernails?"

"Did she tell you she loved you?" Gunther asked tentatively. It was common knowledge among the group of friends that Levi would get the hell out once a declaration of love meant the relationship suddenly became too much of a commitment.

"Maybe she made a grammatical error," snickered Auruo. "Said 'anyways' instead of 'anyway.'"

Levi ignored them and shrugged on his jacket. "Have fun finding a ride home, you shits." He turned his back on them and waved a hand, keys jingling as they hung on his finger, as he walked away, not even giving them a backwards glance. Screw them all. They could take a taxi or something. He didn't give a fuck.

xxxxx

He didn't even bother taking off of his jacket. Breakups were never pleasant. Sometimes they'd cry, sometimes they'd scream, a couple of girls even threw things at him. He didn't peg Rico for any of the three, but he never really knew until he actually delivered the news. His goal was to get in, say what he needed to say as quickly as possible, and then leave so he could wallow in his newfound freedom once again.

Rico looked at him from the doorway she was leaning against. Her glasses were perched on the bridge of her nose, her gray eyes watching him closely. "You're not going to take off your jacket?" she asked. "It's pretty warm in here." She herself was only wearing a loose-fitting tunic paired with dark shorts.

"I'm fine," Levi assured her as he smoothed a crease on her comforter. Rico had pretty decent cleaning habits but she always seemed to be able to rid her blankets of wrinkles no matter how she made her bed. "Listen, I was thinking…"

She held up a hand to stop him and walked up to him, taking a seat next to Levi on her bed. "Levi, you don't have to say it. I know you're going to break up with me." She was surprisingly calm about it. In fact, she seemed a little too accepting of their inevitable break up. Levi was a little offended, to be honest. Then again, Rico being incredibly broken up about this would be pretty uncharacteristic of her. "Would it be rude to say that I'm a little glad it's happening?"

The words were coming out of his mouth with great difficulty. This was the first time any girl had taken a breakup with such resolution. "You're not making any sense," Levi said. Maybe expecting any sort of distress from her was arrogant, but he wanted to at least know that this relationship had some sort of emotional impact on her. Hell, he never got into relationships to make an emotional connection with anyone, but the girls always expected that. He was typically in it for the sex, harsh as that sounds. He never would have pegged Rico for that type though.

She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a laugh. "Sorry, it sounds like I'm breaking up with you, doesn't it? But honestly if it weren't you doing it today, it'd be me ending it."

"Why?" This conversation was definitely not going in the direction he had intended it to go. With every word spoken, he was getting more of an itch to just run out of there, but even he wasn't that indecent.

Rico sighed and turned her head to really look at him, to gaze into his blue-gray eyes with her stormy ones. "Levi, you're a decent boyfriend, but you're not great. It's like you do the bare minimum so you can qualify as my significant other and then we have sex." She put her hand up once again when he began to protest. "Honestly, I wasn't looking for you to be 'the one' or anything stupid like that. You'd probably run if I had even brought it up."

"Jesus," Levi muttered under his breath, and the side of Rico's mouth twitched with amusement. He took that as a slightly good sign. They'd probably end on slightly good terms unlike most of his other relationships. At least he could count on her calling him at 2am shouting incoherent accusations at him through unbearable sobs.

"Oh my god, you want to run right now, don't you?" she laughed, and he cringed. He didn't know how she could find anything amusing while listing reasons about why he wasn't the Greatest Boyfriend Ever. Even he was never that ruthless to his past girlfriends. Obviously Rico was on a whole other level of cruelty. Her giggles subsided and she put a hand on his shoulder. "You're interesting, Levi. And these past couple of months haven't been bad, but I feel like we haven't made any progress at all, at least in the actual relationship department. You're the most closed off person I know, Levi."

"I'm not 'closed off,'" Levi protested indignantly. He didn't know why he was arguing, to be honest. It wasn't like he didn't want to end this. Maybe he just wanted to defend himself. Being called heartless, although it was somewhat true, was pretty insulting. "I give the perfect amount of care and support when it's needed."

"You're so emotionally detached in bed that one time I cancelled because I was too lazy to drive over to your house," Rico replied, rolling her eyes.

Levi's eyebrows shot up, his mouth slightly agape.

She sighed and slid her hand from his shoulder down to his arm, letting her hand settle on top of his hand. "Look, I don't want this to end badly, Levi," she said, her voice low. "It was great, so I hope we can still get by without any bad feelings."

He let out a breath, relieved. If she had suggested they stayed friends, he would have bolted. Becoming friends with your ex never worked, no matter how much the two parties pushed for it. He was fine with just brief hellos as they passed by each other on the street. "Sounds good," he said.

Rico smiled, noticing how he was starting to fidget on her bed because he was itching to find a way to escape her house without seeming rude. "Are you going to take your leave now?" she asked.

"Unless you have anything else you want to talk about," he said, but he was already standing up and making his way toward her bedroom door.

"What was your reason going to be?" she blurted when his foot was halfway out the door. Rico bit her lip nervously.

Levi stopped at the door, one hand on the doorway, but he didn't bother to turn around and look at her. "We're out of college," he said flatly, his voice entirely void of emotion. God, even that sounded pathetic to him even though being busy with other things had always seemed like a valid reason when he dumped other people. "We should go out in the world without getting in each other's way. Meet new people." Rico could probably see through the crap he was spouting out now. She was a hell of a lot smarter than he had given her credit for. If only he had paid attention to her sooner, he would have dumped her earlier so she never would have figured him out.

She smiled to herself. "I see," she said quietly. "Goodbye, Levi."

"Bye." He didn't give her a glance when he left. He didn't look behind him once, not when he shut the door behind him when he left the house or even a glance at his rearview mirror as he drove away. It was, after all, only another breakup and he probably wouldn't remember the details in a week or two. It would just be another footnote in his life. Any feelings of guilt that Rico had brought up in the few minutes he had stopped by were left at her front door when he had left. So maybe he was heartless for not caring already, but was it really a bad thing if he wasn't nursing a broken heart?

Levi contemplated heading back to the club where his friends were. The breakup had taken up less time than he had thought and he decided another drink or two might do him some good. Besides, the night was still young.

A/N: Yet another multi-chaptered fic from me that might take a while to get updates. Then again, I have a week off next week, so maybe not? We'll see. I try to shoot for an update a month but that doesn't happen sometimes because of school. I'll try my best though!

Here's a modern AU based off of Sarah Dessen's YA novel This Lullaby. I hope you've enjoyed reading it so far. Favorites/follows/reviews are deeply appreciated!