Wooohooooo "Chapter 20: Freedom of Pain" was our first super awkward chapter! I guess this is my rite of passage as an author to have at least one really weird and alienating chapter. I think I just lost a follower because of it (We're going to have one more of these weird chapters down the line again probably after 20+ chapters or so :)

ikanisfish: I honestly can't blame you for thinking that the wax scene was weird. When I was writing that scene I was thinking to myself: "is there a better way to convey Viktor's philosophy/idea?" I first thought about giving him a knife instead but then I realized it would be weird for a 15 yr old to randomly pull out a dagger after a boxing match. (Or maybe it's less weird.)
I find it interesting that you read my story in the morning. I always thought this was an evening or nighttime story since it can be quite serious at times.

Anyway, let's all treat the wax scene as a meme and move on. Even so, I hope you guys understood what message I was trying to get across in it despite how off-putting it was.

An Eldian's Journal

Wartime Shenanigans

Chapter 21: Three Course Meal

After the Dassler siblings and I played our game of "hypotheticals," I went back home and sat in my bedroom for a while. I wondered at first why the imaginary and always useless Ymir was crying. I almost scared myself, wondering if I was slowly losing my mind because of the over-looming war and the dumb things that happened in the weeks around that time.

It's weird. The imaginary Ymir acts like her own, sentient person sometimes.

After that thought process, I flipped to the other side of my bed to ponder something else: K the street-dweller. At that point, he had become somewhat of a game in my eyes. I wanted to figure out how I could crack him and see what was inside and the supposed wisdom he had to offer. So, I did what all Eldian newspaper boys do: I made a plan that was bound to fail.

After spending 5 minutes, my mind began to fry out from the extensive use of brainpower, and I took a break from making my plan. I walked to the kitchen in hopes of finding food prepared. And as you can expect, there was nothing there. I looked in my parents' room to see that my mom was sleeping.

Great.

I went back into the kitchen to see if there were any oats that I could eat. Nope. There was none of that. Lucky for me, however, something was lying on the slabs of wooden furniture in a basket. It was hues of hay-like yellow inter-mingling with deep reds. They were woven together over crunchy and juicy flesh. The only thing not corrupted by this world: apples.

Everyone can appreciate nature's candy. They're my favorite kind of fruit.

There was no give to the flesh, for they were good apples. They had just the correct amount of shine and red. In my head at the time, they seemed perfect enough to win even a street-dweller over with. Despite him not begging for food, I thought it was best to assume that everyone needs to eat.

My plan was forged right when I bit into one of these apples and appreciated nature's candy, the only thing unadulterated by human hands.

***A MEDIOCRE PLAN***
I planned to bring him one apple a day for the following week, but I didn't want him to know it was from me.
Reasoning—he probably wouldn't take it if he knew it was me.
Goal—maybe he would be kinder by the end of the week and be more open to me.

It didn't feel mediocre at the time of making it,
But I thought it after it played out.

The following day, I went out to find K the street-dweller on the streets of section F. The first place I checked out was the market. Past the floating bags of sugarless produce were people with moderately clean armbands. The grey was strong and unbothered—it held us devils down quite well. Past these people was dust attempting to ride bicycles, but it was too weak and unorganized to reach the pedals. There was no filth-colored skeleton in sight—K was nowhere to be seen.

When I turned around a corner, I came across Mr. Hans, the painter's house. I nearly stepped on a sleeping dog on the sidewalk and following it was a familiar-looking skeleton and his guitar. On his arm was an armband colored in itchy grey and slightly teetered over to the color brown. It was K sleeping in punctuated snores.

I took an apple from my pocket and tried wiping it with my shirt. I made sure there were no moldy spots on it. I set it by his leg in a paper bag away from his dog, of course.

Mr. Hans stood outside his staircase and sold me a warning. "You know kid, if you give homeless people food, they're gonna keep followin' you. They won't leave you alone."

"I know."

That kind of was the goal.

That was one day out of 5. For the rest of the days, I kept jumping around the streets of section F to find him when he was asleep and give him an apple.

After day 5, however, a wrench was thrown into this plan. When I walked into my bedroom one evening, I found a few notes on the ground. One of them was written on a napkin, and the other was written on an actual paper.

The napkin:

Dear baby devil,

I noticed recently that we've had a shortage of apples. Your mama and I made a deal a while back. We told each other that whoever loses 10 pounds first will NOT have to deal with the divorce papers if (when) it comes down to it. The person who lost will have to do them.

So, I need those damn apples. You're skinny enough; go eat something else so that I can win this thing.

P.S. I'll let you drink some of the special stock from the bar if I win. I'm not bribing you... it's just an offer.

Love,
Papa devil

I wasn't seeing my parents that often around that time, so I guess they thought notes were the most effective option for communication. To be honest, I wasn't surprised that papa was the one that used the napkin.

The actual piece of paper:

Dear Heinrich,

I don't know if your foolish papa offered you anything as an exchange for those apples. But if you leave them for me, I will make you a really lovely stew with some meat in it. I don't have much to offer, but I know I've been lazy with cooking recently, so that's all I can do.

Actually, now that I can think about it, maybe we can try fixing the guitar that the rotten cabbage man broke. That is if you leave some apples.

Love,
Mama

The things people did then to forget they had a war over their heads were genuinely astonishing.

XXX

The day after my plan was ruined, I decided to visit the street-dweller properly. I hoped that the fruit put him in a less cranky mood. I left my home to go searching for him. It took me a while to find him, but he was huddled by a bakery when I did.

As I approached, violence burst out of the bakery entrance in the form of a few humans. One of them was pushing the other four out. "If you want to argue, go outside!"

I made a goofy plan with some apples. Still, the only fruit I received in return was the reminder that I was surrounded by humans doing human shenanigans. I assumed they were fighting over the infamous islander debate that I'm sure you all are pretty familiar with.

I sat next to K, who was actually awake for once, and his stench blared on full speakers.

He was just as insufferable as before, but he didn't need to say anything. As I sat down, I could see that his skeleton face was in a pinched expression. I wanted to ask him some things, but the drama-filled play in front of us was pretty distracting. It was acted quite realistically: real anger was thrown about, words were chewed and tossed between mouths fueling the emotions in the devils attached to them. The stage of section F served them well.

After a while, the words crawled out of their cocoons and formed into full-fledged punches. I watched as the humans did their wartime shenanigans. I found it ironic since the gang, Viktor, and I fought as a pass time. Yet, the people who fought in front of me apparently had different motivations—we were living contradictions to them.

After these punches went on long enough, oppression arrived with its uniforms and guns slung around its back. It was split between the two husks that it rode in. One happened to be a Marleyan public security officer; the other was a wall-soldier that I introduced to you in chapter 3.

"What are you all fighting about?" One of the officers asked. The oppressive nature in him must have manipulated his face, for it was pretty misshapen.

"N-Nothing, sir."

I wondered how these public oppressors noticed all this in a heartbeat, but they couldn't come in during the barfight that occurred a few weeks before.

Either way, poor devils.

Batons were slammed on the group of Eldians like dull knives on sinful meat. With each attack, their arguments were coughed out of them. The group went on their knees and begged to the officer's feet. "We're sorry! Please, forgive us."

The officer wasn't satiated yet.
The baton wasn't satiated yet.
The wall-soldier was once again more entranced by his cigarettes than the devils.

The group of Eldians was used as sharpeners for the batons. It appeared as if the Marleyan officer was trying to beat something out of these devils. Maybe it was their cries.

He kicked the group away as one may do to a sheep to go back in its pen.

I've come across scenarios like that for so long, but each time I saw it in that month, I viewed it just a bit differently from the last. It rested differently on my eyes each time, and my mind would always ponder something different.

"Mr. K, I pulled a trigger."

I confessed my sin as I watched oppression's pair of fingers walk away. If they were just a bit closer, they probably could have heard me and questioned me on the spot. By that point, however, that slipped out as if I became used to the idea already. It was almost like my voice wrote that sentence on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

"...I shot somebody."

The loneliness of my sentence staggered about as it looked for a home, a hug. I imagined they looked first in K, and surprisingly enough, it looked like they found a home there. I noticed how his annoyed expression transformed; his facial features creased like paper. Maybe he realized in some way that we both had some secrets to hide. Perhaps he realized that we both carried out a sin.

K's eyes opened a cent, and his head creaked towards me. "Did it make you feel better?"

It felt odd at first for laying it all out right there, especially after watching people get abused, but it had to be done. I thought K would reveal a secret if I laid one out as well. Instead, he was asking me more questions.

"I-I didn't do it for revenge, somebody tricked me into it."

"How?"

"A journalist manipulated me into using a camera with a gun in it. He didn't force me to do anything at first but..." I swallowed. "He told me that I was a slave to a goal and that I would follow him no matter what he does because of it." I turned towards him. "Mr. K, what does that mean, 'I'm a slave to my goal'?"

K returned his gaze to the original position. I looked up at the devils that were walking about. They must have been occupied by the oppression they witnessed. My troubles must have seemed so trivial to them.

K: "Someone can be a slave to a goal when something they pursue in their lives consumes them."

"But—"

"You are the greatest slave I've seen recently." For once, I think I saw that skeleton face melt a bit. "Every time I see you, H, you have some bruise on you. You walk weird and your hands are wounded sometimes."

"..."

"You are chasing after something, and you keep letting yourself get beaten up for it...you keep visiting me no matter how many times I tell you to go away."

I was a slave then.
I'm still a slave now writing this journal.

When K reaffirmed the journalist's words, I couldn't help but feel a chill reverberate throughout my body. I felt it tingle the walls of my neck and flirt with the sides of my face. Just now, writing all this, I felt the exact same thing in my fingers since it's still true to this day.

K continued. "Whoever weaponized you must be fragile." The journalist struck me as far from fragile. "He must have a weakness deep down."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"He must have assumed that you have the same weakness...and he exploited it."

"..."

*** K'S WISDOM***
"He must be a slave to a goal as much as you are."

Hearing that lit another shiver in my body. It felt like for a second, another layer of mystery was lifted—just one tiny sliver.

But then I wondered, 'What goal was the journalist a slave to? Did he feel like it was his righteous obligation to somehow murder Reiner? Did he think the Armored would go to better hands once he died? And on top of that, did he know that Reiner could heal automatically? If yes, why did he think he would die from a bullet? Did he think that Reiner didn't want to live?'

That feeling of understanding fizzled into a powder that blew away as I breathed in section F's air.

I looked at K. Why was he listening? Why was he suddenly interested in what I had to say? It looked like my simple key of kindness from the previous day opened a door of immense complexity.

K: "Who did you shoot?"

"Uhh..." I didn't feel like that was a good idea to reveal. "How can I trust you not to tell anyone?"

"You just told me that you shot somebody. You don't tell that to somebody that you don't trust. Besides...I don't owe anything to the officers here. I'm a reject of society after all."

His words sounded like a swamp, yet if you cut that outer layer, you find something pristine yet sad in there—some truth. But of course, when you first hear them, they don't sound like truth at all. You don't really know what they're supposed to be. That's the magic of the street-dweller.

Our conversation kept taking different turns as it flowed. After a while of sitting, I was shocked that I didn't mind the scent and that gravel wasn't thrown at me.

K: "The name doesn't matter right now. But tell me, H, what do you see in front of you?"

I took a few seconds to look at the street. I was confused by the question he asked. "Umm...I see a building made of bricks. A street with bicycles and cars riding about."

"I used to see it like that."

I thought back to what K said a while before then: 'You can't understand anything about me unless you see the world in the shade of color that I do.' So, I asked him. "What do you see...what shade do you view the world in?"

He took a breath. It sounded like a bag with a hole in it getting filled with air. "The kind that makes everything look like hell."

"..."

"I don't know what color that would be... it's not red like everyone thinks it would be. It's just the color I see it now: clear."

We sat in a pocket of words on the side of the street, a pocket in Section F, a pocket of a world dominated by humans and hatred for titans. Yet, we were able to sit there and relish each other's complexities. I guess I lit the candle that was K the street-dweller, and as he burned in his horrendous scent, the old wax he was made from shed layers little by little.

K raised his hand with gravel. "Now get the hell away from me, H."

"Yes, sir."

We shared a three-course meal with an entrée of philosophy and a desert of gravel with an unrequested appetizer of oppression. Those words, however, I remember them being quite...chewy...they tasted unfamiliar. I had to keep gnawing at them, for they were too complex. They didn't dissolve like a simple piece of white bread but satiated me well like wheat does.

Section F's characters make me itch my head till this very day; with this shitty pencil on the pages, I almost feel... nostalgic. Maybe that isn't the right word.

Huh, I can never seem to find the right words.

The Real Author's Note:

Alright guys, I've been getting too complacent recently. It's time to turn up the heat.

I'm taking up a challenge.

Starting July 24th, I'm going to be releasing double chapters every week for a month. That means two approximately 2700 worded chapters every week.

Do I have all these chapters outlined or written out? Nope. Am I going to get burned out? I hope not. Will I get writer's block? Hell no! I got too many ideas.

What happens if I don't complete this challenge? I'll delete the story.

(I'm just kidding, this story will get done either way. I promise ;)