Levi eventually came back to wake me sometime after I fell into a nap. From the view of the snowman, small and blending in like a piece in a milk puzzle, to the skinny underside of Levi's chin; my memories in between erased themselves. When I opened my eyes, he smiled aloofly. "Hi." He walked around and sat in his hammock.

I pushed myself upright. "Were you somewhere else?"

He nodded. "I was with family."

This information took me by surprise. Without knowing this, I would've assumed he had no one.

I learned that Levi was born at one point, to two older gods. His mother and father. No siblings, however, which explained a large portion of his behavior.

He stood up with an idea. "Eren, join me." He slithered over to a vacant part of the platform and lay on his back, waiting for me.

As we lay side by side, his shoulder felt warm when it brushed against mine. I convinced myself to not mind the proximity. I hated the part of me that was cowering from him.

He stared at my fidgeting hands that I left on autopilot; Rubbing and picking skin from each other. My human self jumped to the conclusion that he was annoyed. But he clearly wasn't.

Without regard for personal space, Levi pinched my thumb and brought it closer to him. "Doesn't this hurt?"

"A little bit," I said honestly.

One by one, he rolled my fingers in between his, paying each one equal attention. Timid winds pushed barely at his bangs. He laid his own hand right on my chest and let his arm go completely limp. Said, "Do it to mine instead."

I had to hype myself to pick his hand up. It felt heavy despite how thin he was. Or maybe that was in my head. His fingers were incredibly warm against mine. Like the blood of gods flowed with more push than men's.

Then at the end of each day, night by night, I held Levi's hand. We became so used to it, at some point he stopped having to offer and I stopped having to ask. We both lay there, Levi with one arm and me with three. I nudged mild jokes at him, gauging his humor that I would later find out was not so different from mine. His affection came in the form of teasing comments.

When silence draped us, I would fidget with his fingers more, but never did I pick or scratch at them. In three days' time, he pointed at my once-weathered fingertips and we made oohs and aahs at how they've healed.

"Are your dark circles going away, Eren?" my mom noticed one evening in the car when she lost something in the backseat and we had to turn the lights on.

A bit startled, I didn't quite believe it. I pressed down under my eyes as if it helped me check. "Maybe," I said.

"That's what happens when you sleep on time. Keep doing that."

I sat mute for the rest of the ride. Though I recognized where she was coming from, I was a little annoyed that she told me to do what I was already doing.

Winds more invasive than salesmen and the cold, razor-thin air weren't so bad when it came time to cross the bridge. My feet adapted to its ropes that were initially difficult to balance on. The orange sky there was warm like summer, and I was warmer inside.

Now that I was sure of his ability to leave the platform, I suggested to Levi that we could both go into my house. "If you want," he would shrug and say. I preferred it when people were more excited than I was about an idea. His interest was missing, so I didn't want to bring it up again.

At a wave of his wrist, he could rotate the planet and completely turn our backs to the sun. Then, under the extravagant splatter of stars in the dark where his silken skin somehow still glowed, he would narrate to me excerpts from his unwritten biography, a passage at a time.

Up above, either from his doing or out of my own imagination, the shiny dots in the night sky clumped and scattered to illustrate Levi's storytelling. I watched his glittery silhouette move among other strange and divine figures.

In his stories, he told me of the gods, goddesses, men, and women in his life; whoever he felt like making a story for. He spoke about mortals with indifference, and sometimes even fondness. He could've lied about any detail and I would've believed him. My ears absorbed it all. My inner library, then as vacant as a child's, grew filled with just his books; raw, unedited, will never be proofread, but at least had his signature.

"I was born knowing how to speak, but not how to communicate," he began for the first time. I see a constellation of a child in the sky. "Trading words for me was like playing tennis with both Achilles heels torn. I was simply bad at it. But I knew I was eloquent. I secretly wrote poems and stories." My mind to me was what your voice is to you. He gently scratched at the wood beneath him. "A temple once stood here. I sat in almost exactly this spot and wrote down as many of my thoughts as I could. One day, she came to me..."

Her name was Ymir. A pretty girl. She was a slave of the Eldian king. She loved Levi's work. Furthermore, she had her own way with words too. Levi was jealous only once in his life, and it was of her. He discovered she was better than him despite him being more literate.

Ymir brought out the feminine side of art. Love from a woman's perspective was its own language. Levi would've listened to her sing all day, but he couldn't. She was busy and always had to go. Such was the life of a slave. However, it didn't stifle their bond. For a brief thirteen years, they spent thirty minutes a day with each other. Levi would read to Ymir his writing, and then she would come up with hers on the spot.

One day, Ymir stopped coming to the temple. For weeks that eventually stretched into years, Levi waited. She never came back. No one cared about slaves, so word about a girl named Ymir was nought.

"I thought of a million reasons as to why she was gone," he said to me. "I thought of every reason except for the obvious one, which was that she didn't live to return. The incident was centuries ago. Ymir is surely dead by now. But at the time, I didn't know that humans could die. The idea of 'gone forever' never came to me until her. I eventually learned from a caretaker how tragically brittle the human race was. All I have to wonder now is which day was her last."

I felt bad saying it. "My sister told me once that if someone dies after they go missing, it's usually within twenty-four hours after disappearing."

"Twenty-four hours," he squeezed my hand. "I will never comprehend it."

I closed my eyes. Neither will I.

"I hope her death was quick," I said.

The stars stopped in their assigned spots. "Me too," said Levi.

Not liking the tension, I asked, "Do you remember your birthday?"

He hummed affirmatively. "I was born on what is now December twenty-fifth. What's yours?"

"March thirtieth. Wait, isn't your birthday coming up? Let's celebrate it."

"Why?"

"It's a significant day."

"Yes. It's also the day of Christ," he let go of my hand and went back to his hammock. "I don't celebrate it. I've forgotten how old I am. It never mattered to me after the first few millennia."

"Well maybe," I faltered, "you should say yes anyway because I already brought up the idea."

"Your idea is silly," he laughs. "Okay, I'll play along."