I've never so adored you
I'm twisting allegories now
I want to complicate you
Don't let me do this to myself
I'm chasing roller coasters
I've got to have you closer now
Endless romantic stories
You never could control me

Panic!at the Disco, Far too young to die

The thing about regrets is that they creep under your skin like a poison flowing in your veins, reaching your brain once in a while to drive you mad when you finally thought you were getting sane.

I should have kissed her then.

If fighting is a nightmare, waiting isn't better. Long days of uncertain paths and plans of action, trapped in our hidden world makes me miss the icy feeling of fear spreading in your chest, sitting on your lungs like a tyrant on his throne.

We're safe for now, but the idea of that safety soon disappearing gives our rare moment of calm a bitter taste. We're all on each other's nerves, and only Mikasa seems to keep her cool. I would usually have made some shitty ass jokes, but for quite some time now I don't feel like laughing. If I ever was a cheerful one, that was in another life time, before life got too real and death too near.

"We need more wood," says Captain Levi at some point.

Without a word Mikasa gets up, grabs an axe, and leaves the room. I hadn't noticed that I was staring at her until my eyes remain fixed on the door she just had closed. I blink a few times and get back to my companions. Armin is reading, Historia is quietly talking with the captain, Sasha is eating Connie's food who is lovingly staring at her like an idiot. And Eren is alone in a corner, jaegering, looking all tortured and all.

When I think that this guy was willing to die for humanity…

The rest of the room is filled with our ancient comrades, and the new. Those who haven't seen what we have seen, those whose eyes are still clear and innocent. They look so happy, so simple, it's unbearable.

I get off my chair and grab an axe too.

"We need more wood," I say before closing the house's door.

Night has already fallen outside, and a chill wind is shaking the trees around us. As long as a giant hairy titan doesn't show up despite nighttime, I'm good.

I see light coming from the barn and rush towards it. As expected, Mikasa is there. She raises her head as I push the door open and I see her eyes darken as she recognize me.

"Sorry Mikasa, it's only me, not Jaeger ready to declare his eternal love to you."

She rolls her eyes in annoyance and I feel stupid.

This is bitter and mean. I don't know why I said that.

Well actually I do know.

We could say that loving her would mean wanting her happiness, even if it's with someone other than me. But it's not that simple. Things are never that simple. Call me a selfish bastard, and say that I love her the wrong way, I don't care. Some will say that I don't deserve her, but that is wrong. She is not a prize not be won. Not a goddess to worship. She's just the girl that I love, and that I want, even if it's killing me.

And that's the paradox. Because I'm angry, and I'm sad, and she's taking me apart. I want her to feel what I feel. I want her to know what it's like. I want her to taste the bittersweet ache she's giving me.

Silence falls upon us, because she doesn't know what to say, and there are so many thing that I could say, but am not.

She looks focused and peaceful and she deliberately avoids my gaze. I bet I have my stupid look on my stupid face again. I could take my brushes and paint her portrait. I have done it so many times in my head.

But I don't even know if I could hold a brush anymore. My hands were good at drawing, once. Now they're just good at killing.

Suddenly, she lets go of the lumber she's cutting and asks me bluntly:

"Are you still in love with me?"

For a second, I don't know how to react. I not good with words, but I'm even worse with girls.

"You bet your sweet ass that I am."

She frowns and shakes her head. Clearly I'm not giving her the answer she wanted, but then again I never do what people want me to do.

"Why? Why are you telling me this? What am I supposed to tell you?"

"Oh, nothing! I love you and you love him, there's nothing left to say."

She rolls her eyes and smashes hardly her axe again the wood that splits in two.

"You selfish bastard, you can't just tell me things like that, just to make me feel guilty!"

She's right, some part of me wants to make her feel guilty, but surely there's more than that.

I should take back what I said, step in the shadows once more and let her live her life as she wants, and die for him, as she wants too. I don't get to tell her what I feel, because I have no right over her.

That's the thing about love, it makes you feel like you own people when you don't.

But life taught me its lessons the harsh way, and the last time I bit my tongue and pretended that things were alright, I lost Marco.

And I don't think I can overcome that kind of grieve again.

I don't think I can take this.

I can't. I'm either going to cry, or shout. Let's go on with the truth.

It's my turn to get angry, and God knows I have plenty of reasons to boil with anger. I throw my axe on the ground and grab her by the shoulders.

"Oh yeah? Well guess what? I may be a selfish bastard but you are a pain in the ass! I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings Mikasa, and that is why I think you're making a mistake.
Yes, you are stronger than all of us, and it sucks because you, out of all people, are the one who deserves to live the life we could never have. And you waste it away trying to protect him.

She opens her mouth to protest but I have so many other things to say.

"Yes, it is selfish of me to want you to love me back, but blame it on human nature. And it sucks, because we're stuck in the worst of the world, at a time where it sucks to be human. It sucks because we're just fucked up humans when we need to be more than that.

And you all have something to hold on to: Connie and Sasha fucking sleep in the same bed, you breathe for that Eren and Armin, Historia needs to rule her people and me… And what do I have? I have you. Before the titans, before the second fall of the wall, I had my unbearable crush on you, and you know what? I still hold on to you. We're all going to die, but you are the strongest.

You want us to believe that you're some kind of mystery, some kind of goddess but you're human too, and yet the strongest of them. I hold on to you because I know that you will go on. Not for me, but you will keep on living for him, and if seeing you breath and being well is enough to keep me alive, then I'll hold on to it. I'm betting on you. I'm choosing you. I'm walking on the edge of death, and I choose you."

I want her to say something. I'm staring at her lips and I need her to say something. But she shakes my hands off her shoulders and runs away.

The thing about breakdown is that you never really notice it, you accept and repress it until you find yourself staring at the walls that surround you and realize that you have stopped caring.

I could have helped her then.

This is like walking through a nightmare. My steps are getting heavier as the rain pours down and makes my vision blurry. There are more titans than what we expected, and damn, this is not going according to the plan.

"On your left, Jean!" Marlow screams.

A huge dumb seven meters class stares at me with his murderous smile and raises his hand towards me. I sigh because I really hate this job and jump just in time not to be caught and eaten by this ugly fuck.

I adjust the hook of my wire and aim for the nape of its neck. Get ready, steady your blades, strike. Steamy blood splashes everywhere and soaks my hair as the titan falls to the ground.

I feel proud, I killed one. And that is my greatest mistake.

As I turn around to show off and make a shitty ass remark about how sexy I look in action, my smile fades off my face.

"Fuck."

I took too long, my comrades are too busy fighting a few meters from me, and it's not going well for them. Outnumbered and overworked.
Things could be alright for my selfish ass, considering that I'm far from them.

But four others titans are in my way.

It's always a matter of seconds. Once surrounded by your friends, and suddenly alone with your foes.

If I were Levi or Mikasa, I could escape. But I'm not, and man, I have seen too many fights to know how it's going to end.

I thought that when the time comes I would be ready. I don't need time to accept the fact that I'm going to die. After all I've been dead for months. And yet, it still hurts.

I swallow hard and apply my smuggest smile on my lips. Oh, I won't be a good looking corpse.

A first hand reaches out for me, and I barely manage to escape by rolling to the left. I feel like a mouse, trapped in the game of a cat. Some stupid animal instinct wants me to run and survive. I can run, but I cannot escape.

Eventually, a hand wraps around my waist and I'm lifted in the air.

"Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! Your mom's got an STD!"

I chose my last words with great care. I'm almost glad that this whole joke is soon going to be over.

But of course things never go like I wish they did. A red and grey silhouette flashes around me, fast, uncatchable. In a slice of her sword, the hand that is crushing me falls to the ground, unattached to the beast ready to eat me.

The shock knocks me out for a second.

And it's a second too late. I see images, colors and silhouettes, but none of it makes sense.

The regeneration speed of the titan is greater than what I have ever seen. His new hand grasps Mikasa as she lurks for his neck.

I hear her ribs and her spine cracking.

I see Captain Levi slicing the titan's entire head off and Mikasa falls to the ground.

It makes no sense. It can't be real.

I close my eyes and shake my head. I'm going to wake up. This is just a bad dream.

But then I hear Mikasa's sobs, and I crawl to her.

Her eyes widen with horror as she realizes that she is dying. She opens her mouth but chokes and coughs on blood before whispering in a miserable voice:

"Eren… is Eren safe?"

"Mikasa, please stay focused. Please stay with me, you're going to make it."

I lie.

She's dying and there's nothing I can do. I see the seconds slip through my hands and I can't catch up. She is going to die like so many of our friends before, and I'm faced with the cruelty of what's left.

I'm left behind. Again.

I want to paint her face over and over again, like I have done so many times in my head.

I raise my hand to brush my fingers against her frozen skin, but somebody violently pushes me aside and rushes to her.

"MIKASA!"

Eren falls to his knees and wraps his arms around her body. He notices her wounds and tears start filling his eyes.

"Mikasa, please stay with me."

She recognizes him and automatically a wide smile lighten her pale face, a smile like I have never seen on her lips.

"It's alright, Eren, she says, I love you. I've always have."

"I… I know, I… I love you too."

His voice gets shaky and he chokes on sobs. I wonder if he feels stupid, pushing her aside for all those years only to lose her. I hope he hates himself for how he treated her. And yet she smiles.

"Be safe, my love," she whispers as her breath fades.

And her head falls back, with her eyes wide open, and her last smile frozen on her lips.

"No, no, no, please Mikasa, no!"

Eren's tears run freely on his cheeks and he grabs her head to kiss her, as if he were some goddamn prince in an ancient fairytale. But he has her blood on his lips, and Mikasa is dead.

I spend most of my time alone.

I used to be alone before, but back then it was because everybody seemed stupid to me. Now it's mostly because I feel like killing everybody.

For the past few days they left me alone, and I'm glad they did. Anyway, they are too busy crying and making sure that Eren doesn't kill himself.

I haven't slept since she died. I haven't cried a single tear either.

I lean back against a tree, after feeding the horses and I wait for the effects of exhaustion and insomnia to hit me.

"The brats are all crying, and you're not, so Hange thinks you're having a mental break down and sent me to give you fatherly advices and pretend that I care."

I turn around and see Captain Levi. He tilts his head to the side and crosses his arms. He's not wearing his uniform. None of us are, it's just to hypocrite to wear the colors of an order that we hate.

"You're emotionally constipated, do you want to talk about it?"

"No offense sir, but, um, no."

"Fair enough."

He sits next to me and stares at the sun as it starts to set.

Out of all people, Captain Levi is probably the one that I know the least. He's cold and sharp, which is probably why I don't want to kill him right now. Tears and emotion have a lethal effect on me. This whole situation is completely awkward, but to be honest I don't really give a damn.

"You're completely wrecked, right? Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, Jean, but you'll get used to it. You can love her with all the love in the world, and soon enough she'll fade away. You'll forget the way she laughed, and the smell of her hair. Day by day, everything that was her will disappear, and so will the pain of losing her."

I silently stare at him. He knows the words that I can't tell. And I hate it because he's right.

"At least that's what you'll think. Some mornings you'll wake up with her image haunting your face and the memory that you failed will play on and on. So don't worry, kid, you'll forget her until her memory comes back to kick you in the throat."

He shakes his head and take a deep breath.

"Her name was Petra, and I loved her, and she died because of me, and it doesn't matter anymore. All you can do, is convince yourself that the choices you made were the right ones. You can never come back. You have to keep going, keep running and repeat to yourself that you did what needed to be done."

I can count thousands of reasons why I'll never manage to convince myself of that, but I'm willing to try anything, just to get out of my current state of mind.

"Does it work?" I ask.

"Of course it doesn't, you dumbass! But that's the only choice you have. Keep up with the lies, or crumble down, and in that moment of history, in that life, we are not allowed to do that. That's the thing about mankind; loss, heartbreak and grieve. We all go through that shit and yet none of us seems to know what to do about it. Nobody learned the lesson. Nobody knows how to sooth the pain."

He simply puts a compassionate hand on my shoulder and gets up.

The sun is falling and my throat is getting dry.

"Sir, what you said about getting used to the pain, I want to say, that it's not because you're used to something that you accept it."

The captain nods and a broken smile appears on his face.

"Of course. And for your sake, Jean, I sincerely wish you to never get along with your fate."

I stay there a few more minutes after the captain left. I don't want to get up. I don't want anything. I just wait for night to fall, to be sure that was sure that no one will come to bother me again, and then I wrap my arms around my knees and cry.

I cry for long minutes that feel like a crime. But I miss her already. Somehow I manage to fall asleep, but my nightmares are not better than my consciousness, because I see her.

The thing about Mikasa, is that she died and I don't feel allowed to cry.

Because we were nothing, not soulmates nor lovers.

But I chose her like you choose your lucky star, and I lost her like you lose your limbs.