Chapter 9
"Hey, Adira... Can I ask you a question?" Armin asked later that day somewhere near evening. She nodded in reply and he continued. "Where is the sea?"
Adira was silent for a while, thinking, estimating. Armin hoped she wasn't going to answer like the last time. The time they asked how far till they got here. Finally, she answered, and it wasn't like what she answered before. "Actually, I've only been to the sea once... It's outside the lines but not too far from here... If you go to the top of the bell tower I think you'll be able to see it. Though, only a tad bit."
Armin was confused. "Why did you only visit it once? Is it not interesting?"
This, apparently, was also a sore spot. How many sore spots did she have? No one knew. But she replid, "I'm not allowed. I have to stay inside the line." Armin was going to ask how she'd gotten there in the first place when she spoke again. "The first and last time I went there was four years ago. When I got back... When I got back the Titans had already invaded. I never got to visit it again."
Eren, who wanted to join into the story telling asked, "So, how did you escape the people here?"
"Actually, I didn't. My mother allowed me and told the rest that they should give me a break. It was all rules for me before. I was like a special child–not allowed to do things the others could do. They had to make sure I was safe. I was inside the lines. My mother said that I should be able to live my childhood like anyone else–though I wasn't even a little child, it's still part of life. So they let me. I was with my friends. We had fun. When we came back, we saw the people defending the place. No one was hiding. They were all fighting. As if the place itself mattered more than their own lives. My friends helped and I wanted too. But they never let me. They said it was too dangerous."
"You could've defended yourself. You don't seem that weak!" Armin and Eren pointed out.
"It's because of my hounds that I'm still alive! Not me!" she yelled, which surprised both of them. Then she started crying. "I was the weakest, the one who couldn't even pass the physical exams... I can barely fight... When I saw this all happening, people dying and telling me to go and be safe as their last words, I felt so...so useless... My father came to me and rushed me in our house. That was the first time I saw Hunter and Legion as big as they are now... It was an emergency sort of thing you inject to make them wiser, bigger and stronger and faster... They were to protect me. If it wasn't for everyone I would've been dead a long time ago! I'm useless..."
They thought they were in a private chat, so Eren and Armin thought no one else could see and hear her cry. Well, Levi was a mouse. A fly. No one knew he was there all along. He came out of the shadows, surprising the two, but Adira paid no attention. He stared at her before talking.
"You call yourself useless and you're the reason why there are less deaths than usual. Are you telling me that all those soldiers dying didn't even matter?" he asked, harsh and stern, though there was something else that had a word to it that they could not pin point.
"If you were useless, do you think we'd have ended up the way we ended up now? Just tell us now so we can go: do we even matter to you? Everyone in the Survey Corps? You know, I heard you one time when you told your hounds that you were enjoying yourself with us. Was that a lie? If you were useless everyone could've been dead by now! Now tell me: what really is useless to you? Someone who couldn't die with everyone else? Someone who stayed hidden because they told her so? Someone who's saving everyone here from the Titans now? Well, if that's the definition of useless, I bet the world would be in a crueler state than it is now!"
Adira was taken aback. She got back to her senses and refused to look weak.
"Yes," she said simply and left. Stubborn, but who doesn't need time? Sometimes even four years weren't enough to be healed. She shocked Armin, Eren and Levi with her answer. And she just simply left with an answer like that!
The three sighed. We'll never get used to someone like her...
Levi found Adira in her home, in her room, starring at the same frame she'd stared at before. She was...talking to it. Yeah, you read it right. She was talking to it. A deep conversation with herself, in fact. She seemed to notice Levi at the door since she looked up. They just stared at each other for seconds which felt like years until she shifted her eyes at the frame and uttered one word.
"Sorry," she said. "Sorry about me saying 'yes you guys don't matter' and all that. I was lying there... I just... I just can't forgive myself that I just left the people in my home like that... Dying, calling for help... And I just left them..." She sighed.
"You know, no one is ever truly useless," Levi told her. He seemed like her lecturer, but oh well. He did a pretty good amount of lectures to know the right things to say. "Like they say; stop living the past and start living the present. Would your father and everyone else want you to live in regret?"
"No... I guess..." she answered.
"Then stop thinking and start doing it," he sighed. "You know, sometimes I feel as if you are a big burden to me." He saw her look down in shame. He added something to lighten the mood. "Sissy."
Oh, now that offended her. She stood up and punched him playfully. "Idiot!" she said repeatedly, her face red. "But... Thanks, Corporal."
Levi smiled. "Anything for you..." he muttered before thinking.
"What?" Adira asked, looking at him strangely. As if he said something that sounded so...not Levi. Which was, well, kind of true.
Levi coughed; this time he was the one blushing. "Um... Nothing. I said nothing." And he got a giggle from Adira in return. He couldn't help but laugh unconsciously.
A/N: I don't own this story; it rightfully belongs to I'm Pregnant Onii Cchan from Quotev.
