The caffeine incident would come to be something I kept from everyone, even Levi. I went as far as to try to convince myself it didn't happen. I was naive to have bothered. It crossed my mind at least once a day, t-boning other thoughts and demanding to be recollected.

I rocked forward suddenly in the car. Dad put it in park and turned around to look at me and Mikasa. "Who's coming in with me?"

"I'm going," said Mikasa as she opened the door.

"Eren?"

"I'll stay," I said.

I liked being alone regardless, but a car was especially fun to do that in. I could sing, and I knew exactly when to stop because there were windows from all angles out of which I could see people coming back to the car.

I did not sing this time. Instead, I examined the public parking lot and ranked strangers from most to least suspicious. Are any of them carrying a weapon? What if someone just brought out an assault rifle right now and started spraying?

I unbuckled my seatbelt and lie down sideways. This felt safer to me in the same way that children felt safer when they burrow under the blanket.

Time seemed to freeze when a big-sounding wail flew through the sky. Was that a jet, or an enemy bomb? Do bombs even make noise when they fall?

I could see myself, dead. Rescue teams finding me before dad and Mikasa do. I'm turned to chum from the impact. Charred from the blast. Crushed from the shockwave. Or I survive and it was going to be the radiation that gets me later on. Possibly. It depended where the crater was going to be.

The crater would be nowhere, because I counted to thirty seconds and was still alive. The noise flew past.

It was only a jet.

Dad and Mikasa both yanked the doors open, letting cold air spill onto me. I sat up and fixed my hair.

"Eren," my dad wasted no time after sitting down, "Mikasa's birthday is in a week. I want you go with her to a concert."

"Concert?"

"It's an Eden concert," Mikasa said.

"I didn't know you listened to Eden," I remarked. I usually heard rap coming from her room.

Her eyes lit up, and I knew she was picturing him on stage, "I love him."

"You only have two tickets?"

"Your mom and I wanted you to spend some time together," said Dad.

"She wants me to go?" I asked, ironically looking at Mikasa as I did.

"Do you want to?" she asks warily. It was around here where I realized I didn't know a thing about her social life. If I did, I would've known that she had just as few friends as I. Have I only been focusing on myself our whole lives?

I smile a little bit. Not too much, because I've never smiled ear to ear at her. Just enough to let her know that I was onboard. "I want to."

Before I moved to this town, I dreamt normal dreams that fleeted. I forgot them all, except for the ones that I saw Rome in. He has appeared in seven of my dreams since he left.

They all had one thing in common. He always looked the other way. But even in a dream, where logic reduced to only a dim flicker, I didn't need to see his face to know it was him. Seven times, I chased after him and could never get him to look at me. He eluded me as if to save his life.

They were cruel reminders of the way Rome turned his back on me. I cursed my subconscious for rubbing it in. It would make me not want to sleep ever again. Yet when I wake up, I always try going back, in hopes of chasing him some more. Because rather than moving on, I choose the torture of loving his ghost.

Fuck. I would give anything. I mean it. I would walk a million steps. I would trade half of my remaining life to hear his voice. I would go to hell to have him in my arms again.

I now stood in front of my mirror. My reflection scrunched his nose in contempt. There was judgement in his eyes that grazed every ugly part of me. I faked a smile, hoping to charm him. He got bored of me quickly, elevator-eyeing me one last time before finally turning around.

I pulled out the fat-burning pills from behind the bed and swallowed two. Then I turned on music. Songs that had a bunch of lyrics that I could focus on instead of whatever bullshit my mind would've created if it had my attention. I wasn't going to give it the chance.

The soft wooden platform. My presence there felt long overdue. Levi napped like a cat in his hammock, dowsed with a soft orange from the sky.

I looked off into the distance, past the big wooden fence of my backyard, past the other houses, past trees and streetlights and hills. And for own amusement, I assumed that behind the hills, there stretched miles of ocean. Miles of life. Life that I didn't want to miss. The sky that I came to love just now. It brought a tear to my eye that I fought away.

Despite it all, my real death date was still out there. What if I'm not ready when it happens?

"Levi?" I said.

He stirred. "Hm?"

"What's going on with Petra?"

"Haven't seen her since the wedding."

"And her husband?"

"Good question," Levi turned his head away from me, "Wonder if he watched the whole thing."

Awkward silence. He proceeded to add nonchalantly, "I think Petra is in trouble."

Of course, she is.

"It was a bad idea, not just because it was wrong," I said. Who cheats and exposes themself right away? That's like buying drugs before heading to the police station to tell them you're high.

I stared at the back of his neck where his undercut faded to just skin. Under the skin, his muscles tensed and moved so he could turn his head in the other direction. My way. His eyes parted into just slits, looking nowhere specific. "It was her idea. But I don't care what happens to her now."

I thought that was cold, even for a relationship as unstable as his and Petra's. It was clear that he only concerned himself with things that benefited him. He got what he wanted out of her, saw that it had no use, then moved on. I envisioned that she saw him in the same way, as an object.

"Promise me you won't let her cheat again," I pleaded.

"They'll probably break up."

"If they don't, you have to say no to her."

His eyes awoke fully. They landed and stayed on the pinkie I held out to him. Further, I said, "Yes, I've seen the world from her position, but I can do the right thing by taking accountability."

Levi looked at me. I saw the first signs of a grin. He hooked our pinkies. "I knew you weren't dying on that hill."

Gentle breezes, thick as honey, oozed around my skin. It felt like summer through a child's eyes. Colors being more vibrant. Wondrous beauty, findable in everyday objects. Passing time with friends, making up plans as you go. Making small promises that felt so much more important back then.

It won't matter if future-me looked back and thought it was a bit silly that I made a big deal out of this. It meant the world to me now, and that was okay.

He pulls his hand away and hides it under his other one. "The last promise I made was to Ymir."

Ymir lived during Eldia. "That was hundreds of years ago."

"Yeah," he drew out the vowel, playing with the end of his sleeve, "It was a little stupid."

"What was it?"

Levi almost said it, but closed his mouth as if to take it back. He reconsidered for three seconds, "I believe...she made me promise to live longer than her so that if she died, the finest literature will still be written as long as I breathed. Her words."

"You kept it," I said with pride.

"Didn't I?"

We exchanged smiles. He looked away, slightly flushed. "She thought I was a normal Marleyan boy. I never felt the need to tell her what I was. I wasn't sure what she meant by, 'live longer,' either."

"But you found out later on."

"Right."

It happened again. Another collision in my head. The incident was back. Reminder: your death date is still out there. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Someday, I will die. Say my last words. Take my last breath. There will not be an afterlife waiting for me. No, I will not become a ghost. I may or may not reincarnate, but even if I do, I will not remember this life.

I will stop feeling happiness. I will stop suffering. I will stop discovering things. I will miss new inventions. New science research.

One day, way into the future, someone will mention my name for the last time, maybe in a side comment. Some day after that, I will walk the crossroads of someone's mind one last time, to disappear down an infinite path that led me back home, to where I lived before my parents had me. Nothingness.

Death has hands. He will reach out to you someday, and you must return yours. He is unyielding and will not wait for you under any circumstances. Any.

Levi's grip was stern when it clasped my wrist. He yanked my arm closer to him as if to snatch it from me. I could hear again.

"Eren," the way he said my name was so terse, it became one syllable.

I tried to swallow. My throat was stiff, unwilling. "What?"

Under his heavy lashes, his eyes revealed themselves as brown in the sunlight. "You're bleeding."

I saw my index first, covered in fresh crimson at the tip. Then, I saw the wound below my thumbnail. It was no minor bleed. With a gasp, I took my hand back.

"Don't worry, it won't carry over when you wake up," he showed his palm in reassurance.

I blew a sigh. "You're right." I used my shirt to dab away the blood. For the body parts that worked the hardest for me, my fingers didn't get treated so nice.

Levi sank back into his hammock, concern grazing his eyebrows. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. I've done this plenty of times. I flicked some laughter, and said, "I'm okay."