Cleverness and Gullibility

The soft patter of pebbles colliding with glass had awoken him from a hazy dream. He'd been doing some late night cramming, and it seemed to him that he must've fallen asleep at his desk because his cheek was stuck to the razor thin page of his history text book, the details of the past becoming hazy in the midst of the foggy present. He lifted head to squint out the window, and he'd felt strange, as though his mind and soul had been swallowed by a swelling bog.

He'd treaded carefully across the cool wooden floor, his toes wriggling as he reminded himself not to wake up his grandfather. He peered out through the porous fly screen, and he found himself greeted by the luminous face of Eren Jaeger, grinning like a fool as he bounced up and down in the grass below.

This couldn't end well.

Armin popped out the fly screen, feeling cold and nervous as the bitter rush of late autumn wind came snapping at his face, rabid and snarling like a dog gone mad. He shuddered a little.

"Eren," he whispered as loudly as he could, wiping the saliva from his cheek. "Eren, what are you doing? It's like, three in the morning, or… or something…"

"I want to show you something," his best friend called, looking much too pleased for someone standing outside in the frigid air with nothing but a thin pair of jeans and a sweater zipped up to his chin.

"That's not ominous at all," Armin remarked, feeling vacant and sad, though he could not say why. "What kind of something?"

"I found something in the woods," Eren said. He wasn't smiling anymore. In fact, he'd looked downright somber, if memory served. "You love mysteries, don't you, Armin?"

I do, he thought numbly, I do, I do, I love mysteries, but something's not right here.

"I don't know, Eren," he'd said instead, his eyes swiveling toward the door. He thought he'd heard a creaking floorboard, but he couldn't be sure if it had been his grandfather or his own unsteady feet. "But I don't want you going into the woods alone."

"Then come with me," he said eagerly. "Mikasa will meet us there. It'll be just like when we were little!"

"Shh!" Armin's eyes were still on his door, but he heard no more sounds and sensed no more oddities, so he figured he'd be okay if he continued talking. He turned back to look down at Eren, and he felt an anxious knot clench up inside his gut. "Please, Eren, don't go into the woods."

Eren's only reply was a vacant little stare that gleamed in the darkness, and a furrowed brow as though he simply could not fathom Armin's warning.

He hadn't listened.

The next morning Armin woke up with a terrible headache, the kind that left the entire body weak and achy, and it had prevented him from going to school or even attempting to contact Eren and Mikasa. Armin had been fearful and ashamed because Eren had not listened to his advice to stay out of the forest, and not only that but Armin felt as though he'd disappointed him in some way. He wanted to make it up to him, but he didn't know how, and he was too scared to go into the forest alone, even if Mikasa and Eren were there to protect him. It just wasn't a fair arrangement, and he regretted every moment spent away from his best friends.

Armin had slept through most of the day and woken up on the couch. His headache was fading by that point, so he went back up to his room to lie down on his bed and call his friends to make sure they were okay. He threw a blanket onto the bare mattress, closing his eyes and letting himself come back to his mind slowly. He didn't feel right about any of this. He scratched his knuckles as he plucked up his phone and flipped it open, dialing Eren's number and waiting.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

"Hey, you've retched— fuck, I fucked up. Okay, whatever, this is Eren, uh, obviously…? I guess, so leave a message I guess, I don't care, I don't actually check them usually. Okay. Bye!" The beep at the end of the recording was ear shattering, and Armin blinked a few times afterward. He felt sick to his stomach.

"Eren," he said quietly. "Eren, call me back. Please."

He hung up, not knowing what else to say. He texted Eren a few more times after that, begging him to call immediately, but no call came, and there was an uneasy feeling squirming inside the pit of his stomach. What had happened last night?

Armin had been confined to his house for an entire day, sickened and exhausted, which he attributed to overworking. It didn't help that he was riddled with anxiety over the fact that his friends had not contacted him since the previous night.

He became so distraught, in fact, that by the end of the night he'd locked himself in the bathroom and scratched at his knuckles so furiously they bled. It was a nervous habit, one that never went away, and he felt even more distressed when he realized what he'd done, so he ran his hands under hot water for a little while, just a little while, until he felt better.

As he'd begun to bandage his fingers, the house phone rang.

Armin ran to pick it up.

"Hello?" he asked breathlessly, too anxious to even check the caller ID. "Eren?"

"No," a calm voice from the other end of the receiver said. It was an older man's voice, a bit raspy perhaps from smoking. Armin closed his eyes, his heart thundering. He knew without the man having to say. "Is this Armin Arlert?"

"Yes, sir," he said, feeling the need to sound as calm as the man on the other line. "Who is this?"

"My name is Dot Pixis," said the man, sounding kindly enough. "I'm with the Shiganshina Police Department."

"Oh," Armin said blankly. His mouth had gone dry. "Okay…? Why are you calling me, Mr. Pixis?"

Armin didn't really need to be told. He felt like he'd known all along.

"You're very good friends with Mr. Eren Jaeger, correct?" Pixis asked. "When was the last time you spoke to him?"

Armin felt a strange bubbling panic rise up in his chest, and he thought about it for only a moment.

"Last night," he said, "after dinner, he called me about some homework stuff. Is everything okay, officer?"

He didn't know why he'd lied.

He was absolutely terrified, and he felt as though there was something going on that he could not understand or reach, and he hated that he'd been too much of a coward to go along with Eren's scheme.

"Would you happen to know of any reason Eren would have to run away?" Pixis asked tentatively.

"I…" Armin stood in his kitchen, feeling dizzy and nauseous and horrified. His voice was weak, disbelieving, and shaky as he spoke up. "Officer Pixis… is Eren okay…?"

The line was quiet for only a few moments before the man let out a long sigh.

"Carla Jaeger gave me your number," Pixis said cautiously, "because you were not picking up this morning. Armin, I don't want to worry you, but your friend has been missing for about twenty four hours."

It was difficult to grasp what he was saying, even though Armin had suspected for hours and hours now. He felt sweat gather in the folds of his palm as he dug the phone receiver against his ear and closed his eyes, trying to hold back the frantic tears and the panicked breaths.

"Missing…?" he uttered distantly.

The milky white cement blocks of his dorm room wall were ugly and bare. He gripped his sad little cardboard box tighter as Jean tore away the last of the scotch tape used to pin up various memorabilia across the years. The box was small, because Armin didn't have very many photographs, and he'd mostly covered his wall with maps and sticky notes and vague reminders. Half of it was in the trash now.

"Well," Jean said, inspecting his handy work. "That's that, then."

He jumped down from Armin's bed, tossing a postcard into the box without much care. The postcard was of the massive river that stretched through the extent of Shiganshina, running through downtown and snaking through the woods and into a closed off ravine that teenagers loved to occupy. It was such a huge pitted area, and locals called the great crags that led into a cavernous pool "Titan's Maw". It got its name because of the death toll from the numerous jumpers who'd gotten trapped and swallowed up by the depth and unpredictable river currents.

Of course, search teams had scoured Titan's Maw time and again for Eren's body, but all they'd found was a sneaker that could've been Eren's, but also could've easily been another kid's. Armin had seen the sneaker, and though it'd been cleaned up, he couldn't tell if it was Eren's because the paint had faded and Eren's shoes had always been generic in style.

Anyway, that'd been years ago. Nobody was looking for Eren Jaeger anymore.

Well, almost nobody.

"Are you sure about this, man?" Jean asked, glancing down at Armin worriedly. "I mean, you said it yourself. You hate that place."

He'd thought about it a lot the past few months, and the decision had been rather abrupt. It had come, in fact, from a series of texts Mikasa had left him over the winter break. Mikasa kept in touch as often as she could, but she sometimes drifted off into periodic silences that only ever lifted after days of nothing. He was hopelessly concerned for her, and he wished she'd left for college with him. She'd decided to stay in Shiganshina for a reason she apparently felt was obvious.

"For Eren," she'd explained when he'd begged her to apply to the same university as him, and she'd refused.

Armin understood, and he felt guilty for leaving Eren behind as well, but the fact was that he felt as though Shiganshina had drained him of half his sanity. So he'd left. And now he was going back solely because of Mikasa Ackerman's sleepy messages.

He'd screenshotted them and read them over and over and over.

He set the box down on the floor and sat on his bed, pulling out his phone to read them again. Jean glanced at him, and he rolled his eyes.

why did we go into the woods, armin

It had begun on a chilly December night. One message at one in the morning. He'd replied hastily in confusion.

What?

why did i liten to him wy can't w go back why on't we go back i want to go back let's go back!

Holy shit, Mikasa, are you okay?

Initially he'd been incredibly freaked out, because these texts were from Mikasa's phone but none of this nonsense sounded like Mikasa and it scared the shit out of him. The messages had kept coming for a solid hour.

i feel funny i think very funny

i hear hs sound rushing along inside my ears ht rushig ruhing slow sound it's king me sick i'm so recked i think very much so and i feel like there's something bad here but i don't know!

I think you might just be high…

time flows like a river doesn't it

I guess so.

don't get stuck in it like he did

that's what my dad used to tell me

flow slow and feel nothing

i feel time weird is that weird is this weird

are you there, armin

i think i need to lay down but

ah

where are you

are you okay

answer me please i'm not i don't think i am

Go to sleep, Mikasa.

? ? ? You just woke me up

What's wrong

… Armin, I didn't write that

Anyway, it had been an eventful few days after getting scared out of his wits by what Mikasa later claimed was a mixture of getting high and letting Annie Leonhardt play with her phone while high. She said she didn't remember writing it, and apologized profusely about it, but Armin never forgot it. It proved something.

Mikasa had lied to the police. She'd said Eren had called her and asked her if she wanted to go exploring in the woods, and she'd told him to quit fooling around and go to bed. She'd lied.

But so had Armin.

Maybe it was his fault Eren hadn't been found yet.

"Are you looking at the texts again?" Jean asked, sounding rather irked for some reason or another.

"Yep." Armin hummed, scrolling up to reread some of Mikasa's earlier texts. There was something very wrong with all of it, but he couldn't place why.

"Dude, people say weird shit when they're buggin'," Jean said, taking the box from Armin's bed. He pursed his lips and glanced up at the ceiling. "I'd know for sure."

"Mikasa was telling me something," Armin sighed. "I'm sure of it. I need to see her and talk to her about what happened the night Eren disappeared."

"Or maybe she was just seriously baked well done, and could not make a coherent sentence to save her life?" Jean offered, taping the box shut and tossing it onto Armin's old bare desk. It was a little sad to be leaving this room. He'd spent many late night cram sessions here. And also, Shiganshina was not a happy place anymore.

It's still home, though, Armin thought, tossing his phone away and rubbing his eyes furiously.

"Look," Armin said, dropping his hands into his lap. "I know it doesn't mean much to you, but Mikasa is the only person in the entire world who understands me better than anyone. That doesn't mean I don't think she lied to the police about meeting Eren in the woods, though. She's definitely keeping something from me."

"So what if you end up finding Eren's body out there in the river, or whatever?" Jean stuck a cigarette between his teeth, and Armin watched him thumb at the lighter for a moment or so, looking irritable when it spat and guttered out. "Like you can't expect Eren to still be alive, can you?"

"I don't know," Armin sighed, closing his eyes and flopping onto his back. "Logically I shouldn't entertain the thought of it, but there's always a chance he was abducted."

"And murdered," Jean reminded, his words punctuated by the wiggling of his cigarette.

"I just don't get it." Armin watched the grooves of the ceiling, and he scowled. "I'm missing something huge, I just know it! If I can get Mikasa to tell me what she knows, I can definitely solve this case."

"You think you're more reliable than the police?" Jean scoffed, finally getting a light on the end of his cigarette. Smoke bloomed at casually, a familiar scent by now to a boy who'd bent a few years getting second hand cancer.

Armin sat up, swallowing thickly as he wrapped his mind around the issue at hand. Eren had been missing for years. He'd vanished without a trace, and the case had gone cold before it had even really been investigated. But Armin wasn't a cop, and he didn't have to play fair. He'd find out what happened to Eren, one way or another.

"I know I am," Armin said firmly.

They'd taken a train to Shiganshina. It was only a few hours, but to Armin it felt like lifetimes were stretching out before him in the shapes of wheat fields and craters and jagged city skylines. He felt like he'd forgotten something back at the dorm, but he'd made several checklists, and gone through them all twice in preparation for this. He was as ready as he'd ever be superficially, but mentally he felt as though his mind was still hanging around in that empty dorm room waiting for a sign.

Armin of course had his reasons beyond the strangeness that was Mikasa's frantic texts for wanting to look into Eren's disappearance again. There were no suspects, no evidence to suggest foul play, nothing but an old shoe and a timeline that didn't add up. Armin had wanted to figure out what had really happened since the morning he'd woken up with a blinding headache, memories of Eren's request swimming in his foggy brain.

Considering Armin was on the verge of graduating, and he'd all but finished the majority of his classes, he'd gotten the idea to use Eren's disappearance as a subject for his capstone project. He'd gotten it approved and made arrangements to finish the rest of his classes online while he spent the remainder of his semester in Shiganshina. Jean had done something similar, only his final project was something more of a documentary than an elaborate investigation. Jean was a film major, after all.

When Armin had suggested it, Jean had taken a long drag from a joint and laughed a great puff of foul smelling smoke. "That's a little too ambitious for me," he'd said, rolling his eyes. "Besides, I make movies, not documentaries."

Armin had refrained from laughing at him incredulously, and instead implored him to think about him. Inevitably the guy had come around, because after doing some quick research on Eren Jaeger's disappearance he noted that there was… very little information at all. He'd been missing for years, and there was not a single scrap of information regarding his disappearance open to the public.

"Were they even looking?" Jean had once commented in frustration, flinging his hands out toward his computer screen and scoffing. "God, you wouldn't even know the kid was missing if not for all the social media commentary!"

It had honestly been so long ago that Armin could no longer remember what the investigation had been like. He'd never been given details, no matter how many times he'd asked. It was as though nobody had even tried to find Eren.

"And this, good viewers, is the famed Armin Arlert's resting face," Jean said, sticking his camcorder in Armin's face. His voice managed to jolt Armin out of his reverie. "Creepy, isn't it?"

"Why are you filming me?" Armin asked, feeling vague discomfort in knowing he was being recorded. He turned his face away and began to fiddle with his phone, feeling anxious and bemused. It was bad enough that he was dreading returning to Shiganshina, but he didn't need Jean's more unsavory antics to get on his last nerve. Sometimes when Jean got too unmanageable, Armin would imagine how badly Eren would chew him out for his shameless narcissism and distant personality.

"Who else am I going to film?" Jean lowered the camera, and he frowned. "Dude, you're about to try and singlehandedly solve the mystery of a disappearance that literally has zero plausible explanations, let alone a clear cut investigation. Of course I'm going to film you, this is what my project's about."

"Well, like, can't you give me a warning beforehand?" Armin asked nervously, eying the camcorder with clear agitation. He hoped he wouldn't regret roping Jean into this. He was nice, but he was hardly ever serious, and this investigation was hardly going to be fun. He understood it would take a lot of grueling research, and many all nighters that he wasn't even remotely prepared for.

"Calm down," Jean said, slumping in his seat. "I just want to get some candid shots of you."

"Your documentary isn't about me," Armin reminded. "It's about Eren. Remember that."

The silence that came after was long and awkward, and Armin shifted in discomfort, because he'd known already that Jean had forgotten. He had known, and he was fearful of that fact. He didn't want anyone to ever forget Eren. That was what this was all for.

"Armin," Jean said softly. He peered down at Armin's face, his tawny eyes growing considerably sympathetic. It was odd. "You… you don't think Eren's still alive, do you?"

"What?" Armin couldn't tell if Jean was serious, and so he slumped in his seat and stared vacantly out his window. "How should I know if he's alive or dead? Sure, I hope he's alive, but I'm also not naïve enough to think that there's not a possibility he's buried in a ditch somewhere. That's what we're here to find out. Okay?"

"Okay, man," Jean muttered, glancing at him worriedly. "Jeez."

Armin rubbed his face tiredly, and he tried not to take Jean's words to heart. What if he really is dead? he thought dizzily. What will I do if Eren's gone forever? Armin had spent the years entertaining the thought that Eren was alive and happy somewhere, that he'd run away from home to prove a point or something equally outrageous, and now he was off having adventures in the wild, wild world. Armin had always wanted to be a part of these fantasies, to run away and look for himself, but after his grandfather had died Armin had been in a tight situation financially, and it was either a scholarship out of Shiganshina or the loss of his sanity and his future.

He'd always thought he'd chosen wisely, but now he wasn't so sure.

"Hey," Jean whispered excitedly, nudging Armin with his elbow. His finger was extended toward a peak of glinting skyscrapers, glass and steel gleaming like mad little knives about to topple over and pierce their train. The city was one that Armin recognized, if only by the deadly architecture in the twinkling spires. "Look. Home sweet home."

This was Trost.

Trost was an abnormally large district north of Shiganshina, which was in truth more of a small town that had branched off from Trost for some inexplicable reason. Armin had read a few history textbooks, and as he understood it Shiganshina had been a religious refuge while Trost had been something of a city of heretics, breathing songs and art and life in opposition to a stringent old religious order that had long since been lost. Trost had managed to grow into a prosperous city due to its leniency, while Shiganshina had developed into a moderate sized community of some oddly superstitious folk. Sasha had once told him not to pet a passing stray black cat, because it was bad luck. Armin could not bring himself to believe such a thing.

Technically there were no trains that went directly into Shiganshina, so Trost was their stop.

"What was it like?" Armin asked, kicking out his bag from under his seat. "I mean, living in a city. I feel like I would've been terrified to leave my home half the time."

"Nah, the crime rate's not so bad," Jean laughed. "I mean, sure I've gotten mugged once or twice, but that's a learning experience."

He imagined being cornered in a dark alley and getting robbed at gunpoint. He couldn't see why Jean was being so nonchalant about it, but he supposed if it happened enough he'd probably become jaded too.

They exited the train with some vaguely high spirits, Armin's mood boosted by a tingly excitement at the revelation of what was about to happen. He stood at the platform beside Jean, feeling sick with his anxiety and hope, his knuckles white around the handle of his suitcase.

"I should probably like," Jean sighed, "tell my mom that I'm here, probably."

"If that's what you want."

"Eh." Jean rocked back on his heels, and he scanned the platform. Armin took note of those around him, the man near a bench tapping his foot impatiently and checking his watch twice within a span of thirty seconds, a family of four lounging on their suitcases and chattering in a language he did not recognize initially, but assumed to be Arabic, and he saw a young woman sitting and reading alone on a brick wall the encompassed a small garden of rose bushes.

He nearly dropped his bags in excitement.

"Mikasa!" he bellowed.

Happy Birthday, Narfi! =']