A/N: This was originally written for the Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan 2014 Big Bang... but, thanks to certain circumstances, the story was removed and I'm simply re-uploading it. Immeasurable thanks go to my fellow writers (especially those that tolerated my insanity), my Big Bang artist cinthmp (whose cover is featured, and whose other works can be found in a link on my profile), and my beautiful betas, AutumnCadenza and Stately Demented (because, without you guys, this fic would've never turned out as awesome as it did~). Oh, and I should probably mention that this isn't going to have a happy ending, so if you're looking for something with a happy ending then you'd better click that back button now.
Otherwise, though, I should mention that this fic will have profanities, violence/gore and a, uh, romantic scene... hence its M rating.
I'll be uploading this every 2-3 days, depending on how bothered I am in terms of scanning it for any improvements I can make.
I don't own Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan (which is Hajime Isayama's) or this story's inspiration, the Heisei Project (which is zips').
...And that's all, I think~
Beta'd by AutumnCadenza and Stately Demented
~ Chapter One : Beginning ~
Every single history textbook has taught the same things about the past world – how there was abounding misery because people rebelled against the government and how, as a result, many had fallen to the curses brought by people's disobedience – but it was hard to believe in such a far-removed time. The thought of human-eating monsters ranging from 3 metres to 60 metres tall was utterly ludicrous in a world where the largest animals were the tame zoo beasts that spent their days lounging in cages for the delight of all human beings, and the thought of these monsters terrorizing humanity was even more preposterous. How could these small things ever hope to destroy the various buildings that stretched hundreds of metres into the air and defeat the government, with their advanced technology and their unlimited arsenal?
So, just like how people would scoff at the thought of titans for being untrue and unrealistic, so too did everyone laugh at the mere notion of being sad. Because, after all, it was hard to believe in something as ludicrous as pessimism in a world where laughter and smiles were the norm, and any sign of the mysterious thing known as 'depression' would be silenced without a trace…
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The sirens echoed in the apartment block and, no matter how loudly Eren talked to the police officer opposite him, its cacophonous scream reverberated through his buzzing ears and jarred what little functioned in his brain. There wasn't much that was currently working in there, thanks to the fact that his mind was submerged in the pleasant haze that only three bottles of beer at an ungodly hour of the morning could achieve. However, there was enough neurons firing in his brain to realize that the red liquid caking the interior of his neighbour's ajar door wasn't some sort of runny tomato sauce, as the policeman had laughingly informed him.
Yet even then, as his slippers slowly acquired the sickly-sweet stench of decay from the glistening floor, the policeman questioning him continued to smile jovially and converse casually with him. It was almost as if a dismembered corpse wasn't being carried out amidst the sound of vomiting bare metres away from them.
It was almost as if everything was... normal, somehow.
He didn't know whether it was because of the fact that this was the third death in his apartment block in just as many weeks or whether the wooziness of both cheap alcohol and sleeplessness had finally gotten to him, but the college student found his usual carefree grin slip momentarily from his face. His uncharacteristic lapse in happiness, which was an emotion that everyone supposedly felt at all times, didn't pass by the policeman unnoticed, and Eren found the other man's eyes narrowing slightly as he paused in whatever he was saying. Although he hadn't been listening to half of what the man had been saying to him, the drowsy young adult was ready to bet that he'd been carrying on about those compulsory counselling courses that he'd been forced to attend as of late.
Every time someone he remotely knew had been murdered in their vicinity, he'd have to go and see some smiling person that seemed to think the world of his pain. If it wasn't antidepressant pills, it was an avalanche of questions that never bothered to correlate with each other or a scrutinizing gaze that would stare deeply into his soul whenever he talked. It was infuriating, really.
It wasn't as if he could do anything about it, though.
"Is there something wrong, Mr Jaeger?" the man questioned pleasantly and, though the smile on his face gave him the very picture of geniality, Eren still felt a shiver vibrate down his spine.
"I'm perfectly fine," he replied with a fixed smile, but the policeman seemed anything but convinced.
"Mr Jaeger—"
"I'm fine, really!"
The policeman eyed him dubiously in the short stretch of silence that followed his forceful assertion. However, as the green-eyed youth insisted upon his perfectly happy mental state with a brighter smile on his face and, though his raised eyebrow was indicative of his lingering suspicion, the man chose not to press upon the issue any further.
"In that case…" the policeman muttered dubiously as his grin dimmed down a little, before his eyes lit up and he launched straight back into the meaningless waffle that he had been spewing since the perfunctory questions, had been exhausted a few minutes ago.
Eren found his mind drifting off again, and didn't bother to awake himself from his mental stupor until the other man had finally left him alone with a final hesitant smile and a nervous glance in the direction of his glazed eyes.
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Later on, when the sirens had faded into the distance and the adjacent apartment had been scrubbed clean, Eren would not remember flinging his ruined slippers towards the wall or recall the exact nature of the putrid reddish-brown stain that he would find on the once-white paint. He would remember nothing of the bitter taste of government-regulation beer ('For Livening Up Parties! Only 3% Alcohol!' the gaudy label would announce from its position on the plastic bottle) as it burned its way down his throat, nor would he recall the mixture of bile and beer he'd hurl into the bushes beneath his balcony. It was a ritual of his Sunday nights because there was nothing better to do for him other than drinking his lonely weekends into a stupor of oblivion… unless, of course, he wanted to mingle with the masses.
The majority of the citizens would either be singing choir songs in the city square or attending the weekly fireworks displays that the government splurged on at this time. As much as it amused him to get a scratchy throat or a cricked neck, though, a fuzzy mind was probably the least of all those evils.
So, just like every other night, he tipped the contents of plastic bottle after plastic bottle down his sore throat and smiled dreamily at the increasingly fuzzy thoughts that clouded his mind and brought it to sleep. He would later wake up, confused as to why there was a damp patch on his pillow that corresponded exactly with his eye level, and wonder at the peculiar itchy dryness that would persist in his moisture-deprived eyes for the entirety of the next day, but he would remember almost nothing apart from that.
The only things that would indicate the unfortunate events of the early morning would be the crushed plastic bottle lying next to the eerily silent apartment beside his own…
…and the cold chill that settled in the pit of his stomach and refused to budge, no matter how much hot coffee he tried to drown it in.
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"Eren, did you hear about the murder at your apartment last night?"
A pair of glazed green eyes lifted up to the curious blue ones directly in front of him before he blinked once and uttered an intelligent-sounding, "Huh?"
"To think that you'd only witness three murders in a month…" his best friend, Armin, mused thoughtfully as they hurried down the corridor to their first lecture for the day. "I think that must be a record low for you, huh?"
It was probably a bit odd for any eavesdroppers to hear Armin's comments, but the fact that Eren Jaeger was a literal magnet for murders couldn't easily been dismissed. After all, he'd been within a hundred metres of at least four unexplained deaths in the fortnight before he'd moved to his current residence… and that had been a good fortnight for him.
Eren watched with a mild air of amusement as the pensive smile on his friend's face morphed into an excited grin that invariably came when he lost himself in his statistic-centred ranting, before he shifted his gaze to his foster sister. Although Mikasa was more reserved than both he and Armin when it came to expressing any sort of emotion, which was a sore point for her in a world where open emotions were the status quo, there was a distinctively mirthful glint in her dark eyes as she observed her ranting blond friend. There were times when people would give his childhood companions odd glances, especially since his foster sister's infrequent replies almost made her seem gloomy in comparison to the excitement that his best friend often showed, but—
"Eren?"
The soft question broke through his musing and Eren was surprised to find that Mikasa and Armin were staring oddly at him from where they were standing about three feet away. He hadn't noticed when his feet had simply stopped placing themselves one after the other or when the usual cheeky grin on his face had disappeared, but he found himself hurriedly reassembling his facial expression when other people began to glance at him strangely as well.
"Eren, what's wrong?" Mikasa quietly repeated when he'd caught up and they'd resumed walking again, and the college student found his heart clench imperceptibly as Armin finally paused in his rambling to direct a curious gaze in his direction.
"It's nothing," Eren replied lightly, as he fought the unsettlingly unexpected urge to grit his teeth. "You know, we're going to be late if we don't hurry, and I have a feeling that Professor Hange won't be pleased if we're late again."
Once again, the brunette found himself on the receiving end of badly-hidden suspicion as two pairs of eyes bored holes into his skull. However, before he could do anything other than return their level stares with his own even gaze, he found an arm sling itself casually around his shoulders.
"So… what are you talking about?" a snobbish voice asked, and Eren couldn't have been more grateful for the interruption that came from his current saviour's mouth.
Unfortunately, his gratefulness dissipated into thin air as soon as he'd laid eyes on the two-toned hair that belonged to none other than his best friend's stuck-up neighbour.
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When Eren had finally been convinced – or, to be more precise, forced – off Jean's laughing form, the two men were sprouting the most colourful bruises and malicious smiles that the straggling spectators had ever seen in their lives, yet nobody whipped out a phone to alert the authorities to their disturbance. The days when Eren's and Jean's 'friendly' greetings became a little more than overly-hard slaps on the back were almost commonplace now, though there were still a minority that would gape at the proud badges of 'mock-war' that each wore on their faces. However, after a curious few had been duly persuaded to go back to their own business by the cold glint in Mikasa's black eyes, the green-eyed male found himself facing the varying smiles from his friends' (and enemy's) faces.
"Why do you always have violent tickling fights with Jean?" Armin sighed heavily, even as a slight hint of amusement crept unbidden into his voice.
"What I'd like to know, though," Eren started neutrally, "is why Horseface there always comes to touch me when I specifically tell him not to…"
"Ah, well," Jean's snarky voice sang out, "as amusing as it is to be assaulted by Your Royal Highness, I can't remember which of my acquaintances are stuck-up bitches–"
"That's enough, you two." Although the faint smile hadn't left Mikasa's face, both Eren and Jean found themselves paling and taking a step back from the black-haired girl.
However, before any of them could move a muscle, a rather loud voice assaulted the quartet in the otherwise empty hallway.
"Oho, is that Eren I see?! Don't tell me you got into another friendly scuffle with Jean, or you'll have to put restraining orders on each other!"
Eren paled still further and attempted to run away from the blurry figure that was flying towards him. Unfortunately for him, and much to the varying levels of amusement from the three other college students watching, Eren was duly bowled over and flattened by his hyperactive lecturer, who also happened to be one of the most eccentric professors in the college.
"P-Please get off me, Professor Hange…" Eren weakly mumbled from his face-down position on the floor, amidst Jean's obvious snorts of laughter and Armin's poorly-hidden chuckles.
"No can do, Eren!" the enthusiastic lecturer announced happily, before they yanked the youth to his feet and began to drag him over to a nearby lecture hall. "If I let you go, you'll probably march in half an hour later or not come at all, especially since Jean's here~"
In the face of such ruthless determination and overall weirdness, all Eren could do was grit his teeth in a mockery of a smile at Jean's guffawing figure and cast an apologetic glance in Mikasa's and Armin's general direction. When the boy and his lecturer finally made their way into the lecture hall, the trio gradually composed themselves and wandered off to their respective lectures, eager to get over the morning's excitement and apply themselves to some form of learning.
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Criminology was usually one of Eren's favourite subjects, especially when his professors decided to allow everyone to go crazy on debating certain behavioural traits.
However, all the boy could think about was the headache that had snuck up on him, thanks to the fact that everyone was rather loudly shouting back and forth in the lecture hall.
It had started up surreptitiously as a low buzz that he had felt in the back of his mind but, much to his annoyance, the discomfort had gradually increased with time, just like his unease from the morning's events had as well. For some odd reason, not even Hange's cheery insults or his fellow students' verbal prodding could rouse him from his groggy stupor.
"Eren, you lazy bastard!" one of the people further down called out loudly, "Stop sleeping on your arm and get your ass over here, unless you're really just filled with hot air!"
A frown marred the brown-haired boy's face when he finally matched the snarky voice to a rather familiar face ─ it'd slipped his mind that Jean had attended his lectures, just like every other relevant thought had ─ but he made no move to lift his head up and fling back a retort, as he would normally do. The energy had somehow deserted him, though he couldn't really understand why it'd left him or where it'd disappeared off to; however, Eren wanted to think that the culprit was the suspicious green growth that he'd accidentally bitten into when he'd been eating his week-old bread.
It was only when someone came to shake his shoulder that he flung his head up with a growl and fought to see through the sudden dizziness that had come with his abrupt motion.
"What the hell—" he started huffily, before he nearly cut his tongue off when he noticed the amount of people that had crowded around him without his knowledge.
"…Dude, we've been calling your name for the past 10 minutes," Jean offered as an explanation, even as Professor Hange ambled over to see what was going on as well, "and you've just been lying there like some sort of corpse."
The college student's green eyes clouded over at the other's pitying tone and the rather morbid analogy that he'd used, but he felt a shiver crawl up his spine as his gaze roved over the vague curiosity on everyone else's faces. For a moment, he had almost thought that he was in a gallery surrounded by sneering figures as a needle sunk inexorably into his arm…but the strange mental image dissipated as quickly as it had come.
Instead, Eren was left with a vague unease and a slightly deafened ear, thanks to the enthusiastic lecturer perched beside him.
"Eren~!" Hange's voice sounded in his ear again, just as a rather adventurous hand dug itself into his hair and ruffled it rather vigorously. "Earth to Eren!"
"Eren, are you even listening to me anymore?"
"Come on, Eren, snap out of it!"
"Eren… Eren… EREN…"
"Dammit, shut up already!"
The loud and pained cry caught everyone by surprise, but what really made everyone reel from the angered boy…
…was the sheer darkness blanking out Eren's dilated pupils.
However, before anyone could do anything more than blink in shock, he stood up and shouldered past everyone. As they scrambled back from the scowling male and eyed him with something other than automatic placidity, he wrenched the door to the lecture hall open and slammed it shut behind him with a deafening thud. In the silence that followed his abrupt exit from the hall, the only sounds that anyone could hear were erratic breaths and even more erratic heartbeats.
And, by the time people realized that he wasn't going to come back, Eren was already halfway home.
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The odd stares that Eren received as he stormed towards his apartment block were the least of his concerns, though, the same could not be said for his current state of mind. The roiling emotions struggling to break free from his heart confused the college student more than any of Armin's overly complex maths problems ─ which were one of the few things that he'd never be able to understand, as far as he was concerned ─ and his confusion only added to the odd feeling that threatened to overwhelm him in its wake.
He couldn't comprehend why his urge to physically mutilate something was growing with every step that he took or where his sudden violent tendencies were coming from, but Eren was smart enough to realize that what he was currently experiencing wasn't something that couldn't really be considered 'normal'. From what he knew about his present behavioural tendencies, his existing urges towards uncharacteristic actions could either be attributed to some sort of suppressed psychological trauma or was a manifestation of his non-conformist ideas, but neither explanation suited his situation at all.
His childhood had been as normal as anyone else's, from what little he knew of it, and the mere thought of rebelling against the government frightened him enough to momentarily stop him in his tracks. There wasn't anything particularly contrary that was lurking in his mind, as far as he knew.
…So what exactly was the reason for his contrary behaviour?
Eren growled and gave into his vicious urges when he reached the elevator in his apartment complex as he raised a tightly clenched fist and threw a savage punch at the unoffending 'up' button. It took him a few seconds of staring at the sparking indent to realize that he'd irrevocably broken the device and that he would have to take the stairs if he wanted to get back to his apartment before tomorrow came around, but all he could feel was a slight sense of satisfaction at breaking something. He had always been told, from a very young age, that violent and antisocial behaviour was unacceptable in a society that promoted happiness and peace, so why did he feel so good?
Why was something that was so fundamentally wrong feel so right all of a sudden?
The growl that issued out of his clenched jaw reverberated in the abandoned stairwell as he jogged up the stairs, but it was swallowed up by the explosive slam of the door when he stumbled onto his floor's corridor. He was so immersed in his feverish utterances that he didn't notice the man that was in the process of lifting his hand to his door… until he crashed into him and fell to the floor in a daze.
"What the hell?" the shorter man growled as he steadied the covered plate in his hand, but Eren was too stunned to do anything other than gape at the glaring person. "What sort of brat goes around bashing into other people anyway?"
When Eren didn't give an answer, the man frowned slightly at him, before he offered a hand to the other and wordlessly helped him up. However, when he was done, the unknown person huffed under his breath and muttered a few muffled curses, the likes of which Eren had never heard before.
"W-Who are you?" Eren asked, when his mouth finally decided to obey him, "And why are you in front of my door?"
"Ah, so that's who you are…" the man seemed to mumble, before he extended one gloved hand to Eren and smiled the most awkward smile he'd ever seen in his life.
"I'm your new neighbour, and I was just going to introduce myself to you… well, until you crashed into me just then."
A/N: Reviews aren't mandatory, but they'd certainly be appreciated~
