The last thing Eren recalled was the glimpse of the young blonde's face. The silent flow of a single teardrop—something both so insignificant and incomprehensible that no one had bothered to notice it. No one except Eren. Eren was clearly aware of it, and despite having little memory of what happened, the image stormed before him every time he batted his eyelids. The sharp contrast of her tear against the backdrop of an apathetic expression, the amount of pain she had kept hidden within her slapped him hard. He had been dense. So damn dense, that all he thought about ever since they accused her was how fucking disbelieving and insipid and confused he felt. He never regarded how she felt, not even for a second. And what had happened, he now became conscious was the price of his idiocy.
Eren asked. Slowly at first, wondering if he still deserved the privilege to speak; it seemed that almost every time he declared something, the very object at the end of the journey would shake and crumble within his hands. Mikasa's hold on him was shallow—his limbs were shaking so violently, his breath so hitched, and his entire body burning up so fast that vapor puffed upwards and she felt like she was holding a simmering cooking pot. But that wasn't quite accurate. He was more like a pot that had been worn and bruised, and all the fire that once fueled him was at the final stages of consuming him. Eren asked about Annie. The big, solid lump of crystal that laid forlorn further front.
"You're a fool, Eren," Annie spat at him after he had been tossed over, his back smashing to the ground and his chest left uncomfortably compressed between the rocky floor and a firm elbow. She had a piercing gaze at him, one that managed even to pull his attention from the stunning lights to her clear blue eyes. He hacked, muscles tensing under her strength. He had been rather proud of himself—holding up against such a strong opponent for about half an hour—it was no easy task for him to have gotten so far. And his guard was steady until Annie commented on his ambitions. Getting in the scouting legion. Then Eren corrected her. Annihilating every last titan out there. Then Annie spoke again. It was an impossible dream. Then by that time Eren had been provoked, and in one volatile punch, he managed to knock the wind out of Annie.
Except that was how he had imagined it, and in reality Annie had ducked and cut his feet off the ground.
"Once you let your emotions get the best of you, you forget everything you've learned," She released him from his suffering expression. Annie stood up and looked down at him. Eren growled at first, rolling onto his side before he processed what she said and his furrowed eyebrows softened. She had provoked him as a mere test. He flopped back on the ground, sighing.
"Is that why you're always so blank-faced?"
"You could say that."
A moment passed as Eren just watched Annie gaze at the sunset. The oranges and reds and pinks that coloured everything beyond their training spot—somewhere far above that they had stumbled upon and chosen for the sake of isolation.
"But really, Eren. Freedom is just wistful thinking. Freedom from pain, loss, suffering—none of that exists."
Eren frowned, sitting up slightly.
"And what isn't, in this world?"
Annie turned back to see that the brunette truly was the one to have said that. Eren was the last person she would expect to utter those words—no, confession, rather. And aside from the coldness of his voice, she wanted to see how serious he truly was. But he wouldn't look up. Instead he just left his head dangling like that, away from her line of vision. Eren thought that, if she did believe him, she was finally satisfied to hear those words. He had swallowed so much pride and shame to say it, after all.
But that wasn't what Annie was feeling. Annie was feeling dejected, rather. She felt like she had been cheated by him. That the greatly motivated idealist with what she had once thought to be a bright flame was much less than she had thought. Or much more—she didn't know anymore.
"We live to die anyways." Eren picked himself up, though he was wobbly from all the physical activity he tussled through. He couldn't bring himself to look into Annie's eyes. He watched the children play far below them, one of them tying a rag around their necks and holding a cardboard wooden sword. "Not one of us stands a chance out there. Out here. Anywhere, really. It's just false hope, after all."
One of the children's parents came by, whacking them for wasting their time playing around instead of getting back to work. The children abided eventually, and despite how begrudging they appeared, they were soon smiling as they worked on the farm together.
"But false hope is the only thing that we've ever actually had. All the dreams and ambitions of humanity have been shaped to make us feel like we're worth something. Anything. We're petty, but content."
Annie couldn't stand it anymore. Without realizing, she was instinctively moving towards the taller boy and she grabbed his face. She pulled his face to hers, until they were barely inches away. She looked at his eyes. His eyes that had always seemed to shimmer in the brightness of the sun…they actually appeared quite dull and cold. She winced. Fucker.
"Why the hell have you been keeping all this pinned inside?" Annie's anger was uncontrollable. She herself wasn't even sure why she shouted at him so furiously, to the point where Eren's ears were ringing and he couldn't keep his eyes opened. Before Eren could do anything, Annie slammed her knee against his guts and sent him flying against a tree bark. He coughed a bitter mix of blood this time, and Annie knew she had taken it too far—but she just couldn't hold in the beast anymore.
"Why? Why did you deceive me? Deceive everyone? Make everyone think that you were the idiot and that you think everything is possible?"
Eren didn't respond.
"All this time I believed that you were who you acted. That you were the most suicidal fool on the face of this earth. That you wanted to kill all the titans and create some false peace you always talked about," Annie's voice shuddered and she could barely hold herself upright anymore. All the fighting and scrapping and outcry had battered her and she plopped in front of him. Her knuckles turned soot white. "Please, Eren. Answer me."
A strong gust blew right against the direction of the wind. Eren looked up, his bangs flowing with the change of the wind currents, and he grinned sweetly at Annie.
"It's because I need to continue playing my role. As an example soldier, ready to give up his life to bring humanity closer to freedom."
Annie left right after that. Not another word was exchanged, and they graduated without the chance to speak to each other again.
Eren knew now. He stood in front of her fossilized crystal—her crystal that seemed like a barrier to keep herself away from the cold world that even Eren admitted. But Eren regretted revealing the truth to her. Because he had known, too, that honesty could never do any good. Still, he trusted her—out of all other people—with his true face: a chained, wingless hero. And while he had been busy pretending, she decided to vanish. Something that sounded like a scoff escaped the corners of his lips. Was this how it would end? With Annie knowing the darkest parts of him, yet he, clueless as to why she had done all this?
He wanted to scream out to her, and tell her that her presence made him feel like he wasn't all alone in this world. And that she, who clearly understood every fiber of his suffering, could have trusted him too.
It wasn't the first time those thoughts crossed his mind, though. In fact the reason why his throat was so dry and his lungs were burning was just that. Annie finally revealed even the briefest glimpse of her pain, only in her bitter end. Her pain that Eren would never come to understand, her pain that he wished he had tried harder to understand, was locked away in this underground chamber forever.
The feeling was mutual. Annie had been striving to reach out to him too—to bring him with her, and if they could, they would not find freedom, but rather fix the definition of it. Together. If only they had managed, then Eren would come to comprehend why Annie had been so mad with him, why she sacrificed so many people, why she committed such a crime. Eren reflected her so much—it was as if the words Eren had said to her came from her own head. She knew so well, how painful it was for Eren to keep those feelings in…because she had always done the same.
The only person Eren could blame now was himself. He had lost such a precious person to him, and it was all because of his incompetence. Eren gazed up at her through the blur of his turquoise eyes. Isolation hollowed him. No matter how hard he tried to revert back to his false, cheery attitude, he just couldn't do it. He could only watch the ice capsule intently in this cold, damp and empty cave—as if he were waiting for something to move.
And Annie would too, in her unmoving state, continue crying for an eternity.