Armin did not mind me. Maybe it was the biggest relief I felt, coming here. He gave us two of his quarters, but Levi and I snuck over to each other frequently. And when it was dark, we sometimes shared one room.

The time I've spent there couldn't have been that long. Hoping that my time perception was still intact, I estimated that it's been two weeks when Levi tip-toed to my room. The door was deliberately insecure and didn't make a noise as it swung.

"Are we not allowed to be doing this?" my voice was not far from a whisper.

"I don't know," he said. "Pretty sure Armin is a light sleeper, so I'm mindful."

I was on my side. My bed only had room for me alone. He sat on the space I freed up for him.

This moon was bigger, or at least, it was closer to the ground than the moon I knew. It leaned down and kissed us, leaving shapes of light on our bodies. The structure of Levi's bones tattooed his skin in shadows.

l pulled the sheets up to cover the bottom half of my face. "I was just about to go to sleep, you know." Meaning, he wasn't going to get to talk to me.

"You waited for me to come here so you could reject me, I see," his sarcasm was undetectable to most, but I heard it. Only I. He promptly moved himself to the floor and leaned back against the side of the bed. "Goodnight."

From where I lay, I saw only the back of a head. The only sight to ever torture me in the way it did, time and again. It made falling asleep scarier. Because to me, the back of a head symbolized rejection. Abandonment. No closure.

I shut my eyes. Moonlight steeped through my lids, dyed in bloody peach. I could not feel the temperature in the air.

I think I heard Levi's breathing. Or maybe it was my own. All of a sudden, I felt that we were racing each other to fall asleep first. I did not doubt him when it came to a sport like that.

He sighed in the least dramatic way, then I heard gentle shuffling. I forced open the eye closer to the bed, and no longer saw him. When I leaned over the edge in search, he was already watching me. "I knew you'd look." He grinned.

My ears warmed, and I laid back down without a comeback. "Goodnight."

Silence. The loud kind, not the ones cushioned by cicadas or traffic. I did not know for how long it lasted.

My eyes, wide and absent like dead fish, caught his hand hooking onto the bed's horizon before his head rose into view, dripping with lunar glow. Beneath his lashes that shined white at the tips, his eyes spotted mine.

He rested his elbows on the bed, like he was visiting me, a hospital patient.

I smiled wryly. "You know what you remind me of?"

He cocked his head.

"I once woke up in the hospital with my parents next to me like this. I tried to die that morning. I remember the look on their faces. They probably scraped their brains clean to figure out where they went wrong," I stopped, watching the playfulness drown away in his eyes. "It was a while ago, so I can laugh at it now."

"I don't mean to offend you, but I find that quite horrible," he hugged himself, his seriousness sobering me.

I blinked. "Sorry."

He put his head down on the bed. The cushions absorbed his voice, "I just worry for you. It feels like you could be taken away at any moment."

I could not doubt his despair. If anyone had battled loss the most valiantly, it was Levi. I should have known to avoid topics like this around him.

I did that one thing I did a while ago. The hand on his head, thing. I just put it there, and hoped he didn't mind.

"Even if I did. Just because I'm gone, doesn't mean I never existed. You know? Don't be sad that it's over, be glad that it happened." These were words of advice that I never took for myself. I had the audacity to tell him this.

Levi turned his head just enough to peek at me through one eye, "I'm sorry, Eren, but that's such bullshit."

He cursed less than me, and I only did it sometimes out loud. That was how I knew he meant it.

I rolled his head to make him fully face me. "Levi," I said. I didn't stutter anymore. Gone were the early days. We were no longer strangers. "You will get tired of me someday."

There were microscopic changes in his expression. He said a little too confidently, "No. You will."

"Why me?"

"Humans perceive time differently," he closed his eyes. "I realize that now."

His hair was cool. His scalp was warm. I felt both through my fingers.

I remembered him asking where I saw myself in a thousand years. Maybe the truth was that I didn't see him beside me by then. If that was going to be the case, I would have to be fine with it. I've let go of people before.

"You're probably right," I said. I rubbed strands of his hair in between my fingers, twisting them together. When I released, they fell right back in their places.

Levi said, "I dread that someday, we won't ever talk again."

I pinched another bunch of hair and said, "Life goes on like that." My voice was unlike me. "We have to be okay with it. Make good memories while we can."

I knew damn well I hated memories. It wasn't enough just recollecting them. I wanted to experience them again.

And there were so many things that I wanted to feel for the first time again. I wanted to love without a safety net, without the mess in my head. But because of who I am and what I've done, I've lost the privilege to do that. Or, I've taken it from myself.

Those were the kinds of things that made the elderly want to be young again. No one understood that until it was their turn.

I'm scared too, I longed to say. I don't want to get tired of you, even if the tired me won't give two shits. It was going to be like a part of me dying. The part of me that adored him, begging to live.

"Eren?" My name was but a gentle push of a piano key, he was so quiet. "I hope you're not believing what's coming out of your own mouth."

I pinched some hair, again. My fingers slid down his strands with ease. Virgin hair. Never bleached, never dyed. I once had a black violin, with a black bow and its black hairs. They weren't as dark as Levi's hair, but they were as smooth when I first touched them.

One end of my mouth lifted on its own. I couldn't help it. The version of me that I tried to hide stepped into the light to declare, You're right. It's all bullshit.

I thought about Rome. Yes, life move on without us. I was not okay with it. Even if I still lost him in the end, I would relive my whole life if it meant that I could see him again. He picked me up and put me together, piece by piece, but then everything was because of me. And when he let go, he left me in the way he found me; shattered, once more. This time, laced with his glue.

I think my love for him, my missing him, was a mental illness. It disturbed me greatly. I think it ate away the good parts of my brain, my ego, my self, and left nothing but a...well, a finished project. An adult, with habits set in stone, and my habits included seeing things that were not there.

So for a brief moment, I saw a trace of him in Levi. I didn't know what it was, or where. Maybe it was something he said. Or it was the way he just caught me in a blatant lie, but still offered me a way out.

I didn't take it. I said, with resignation, "I'm not."

He met my eyes. A fatal mistake. Why did he have to do it?

Time slowed. I made one small movement that felt like throwing a grenade. I didn't close my eyes when I kissed him, which showed just how fraudulent I was being. Our faces met in this way briefly, just long enough for me to take his lips in, then I leaned back.

Now, I waited for the blast.

There was a human-like perplexity in him, digging its way past his outer layer of stoicism. A whole rest amongst the entire orchestra. When he said, "I'm sorry," it was like the bass played a solo.

I asked, like the accompanying violin, "For what?"

He said, "Not feeling this way."

There it was. I've heard it before, so it did not affect me. "I don't need you to," I lay back down, "I just wanted to know what it felt like, that's all."

His shoulders sank in relief. He took my hand off his head, my pinch zipping across his hair. His head rose above mine, and his smile resembled a mother's.

I remembered my mom. Back when she cooed, "Be a good boy," in the morning to me before she left for work. I would still be in bed, watching cartoons. Back when I watched television on cable.

"Would you like it one more time before I'm gone?" Levi asked. He leaned in close, in case I said yes. Like he owed me it. He did not look down at my lips; he looked through the windows to my soul.

I did not say anything, but I closed my eyes, and that was enough.

Though I didn't taste it, his breath was sweet. It was raw honey that felt warm going down my throat and dissolving into my drug-ridden lungs. Our mouths slipped on and over one another, like silk pillows and silk sheets. This one lasted a second longer. It was everything I could ask for.

It was all that I asked for.

Then, he offered me a friendly smile before sneaking back to his room, his feet pattering softly. Until I could no longer hear them.

Until he was gone.

Levi was still asleep when I saw Armin in the common area of the temple. I stepped into the blinding midday sun, and through the fog of brightness, I saw a woman also. A goddess.

It was Petra. And it could've only been her. Like we've met before, I recognized her. This was after months of drawing my own image, using only Levi's descriptions. I didn't know if I was more in awe of her beauty or his accuracy.

She reacted to me with an unblinking gaze. "Who's this?" she asked Armin, dimples forming on her cheeks. Her eyes didn't leave me.

Armin looked at me, in a peculiar way. Like I was something to be hidden.

"He is Eren," he said to her.

"That makes all of our names two-syllabled," she commented. Nothing was funny at all, but I couldn't help but smile back at her. Attractive people really had it easy.

Armin patted an empty seat. "Would you like to sit?"

We all sat equally apart around the roundtable, like a council meeting with the father, son, and the Holy Spirit. I was the son, small and plain next to them both.

She was the forest. Her aura is oxygen and rosemary. It didn't take long to reach my nose, and the moment it did, something clicked.

That time on the platform when I waited for Levi to return from the wedding. It was her. She reached me first.

She knew that, too. I saw it in her eyes. They couldn't believe themselves. "It's you," was what she stopped herself from whispering.

"Eren," we looked away at the same time when Armin spoke, "You want to know what she's paying me in?" He pointed at Petra with his pinkie.

"Don't say sex," it came out to guard my peace of mind.

Petra's jaw went slack. "What the," she objected, meeting Armin in the eyes, "Eren, no." I hid my mouth with a hand, afraid that I really offended her.

"He's just being himself." Armin took it as a joke. I noticed that he held his finished box close to his chest. He turned it to see the bottom side. "Petra's giving me a treehouse."

I was immediately certain that when gods said, 'treehouse,' they meant an entirely different structure from the treehouses that men built. This was a grand gift only she could bestow.

"What does it cost you?" My first direct words to her, wrung dry through anxiety.

She blinked and said, "I'm sorry?"

"I gained some weight during my creator's block. It was a weird time for me," Armin ventilated, looking my way throughout. I realized he tried to communicate something to me.

Energy. It cost her calories.

"I can relate," I said. It was half-true, at least.

"What do you do, Eren? I don't think I know you," Petra puts her elbows on the table.

God. No, I was not one. God, as in, god, why must she ask?

He said, somewhere behind me, "Because only I do."

We all turned.

"Levi," Armin illuminated, "Good afternoon."

Triggered by the downpour of sun, Levi yawned when he stepped forward. He was unbothered, as he was. Like nothing happened.

"Hello," Petra said.

"Hey," he said.

Nothing to or from me. Only a brief glance as he squeezed in between Armin and me. No one knew that it meant anything.

"Why are we gathered like this?" His eyes latched onto Armin's puzzle. "Are you showcasing it?"

"Apparently, I am," Armin placed it down in the center. "Is that okay, Petra?"

She said, "I don't mind."

To be honest, his hands were too fast. There was no way I could memorize it all. He flipped some switches, pressed some buttons, and turned some keys. Then, in finale, the top half just slid right off.

"Wow," Petra's hands domed over her mouth, "Do it again."

He did it again. Petra nodded and mumbled okay's. I sat there and still didn't register. I itched to look, and see how Levi was taking it, but I winced when I realized my own hesitation, like the mountain was higher than I could climb. Why?

Eren begged to get up and run as far as possible. Kruger grabbed him firmly by the collar and held him in place. Don't be a pussy.

"Levi," I said, "I want to see you try."

"Me?"

Armin handed it to him. He stared and stared. Made no move to begin solving it. Looked at Petra. "It's okay that I know this?"

She shrugged her hand. "If it gets broken into, I will have three suspects." Levi started to copy Armin's patterns. She slipped in, "Especially you."

"Yeah? Fuck you too," his voice was mellow, deep in thought.

The box clicked and clacked, rattled and ticked. He was under the spotlight. Petra and I were the audience. Armin was the judge, watching with heavy lids.

It was like watching an intermediate solve a Rubik's cube. His fingers knew where to go, they just moved a bit tediously. They were still learning, going back to square one repeatedly.

Click.

Click. Click.

Brrrr.

Click. Clack. Clack.

Click. Brrrr.

As soon as I leaned away, exhaling, there was a distinct pop of the cube parting in half. I heard Petra gasp. He got it right.

I saw that smirk of triumph as he set the puzzle back down. I used to be the 'art' kid in grade school. That was the exact face I made when my teachers would take my drawings to the front of the class and show it to everyone. I liked that about him. How he tailgated Armin in intellect.

Armin clapped. "You did it," Petra remarked with her dimples and her eyebrows that rose to the top like birthday balloons.

He smiled in response, but looked straight at me, for my validation. It was like we suddenly spotted each other in a crowd, and for just a moment, there was no one around us. I smiled back, remembering that I was the one who challenged him to begin with.

"Impressive," I said.

"Thank you," he said.

But we didn't say anything.

I never got hungry. The time I would've spent eating went into staring a thousand yards away. I sat in my room and watched blurred silhouettes of trees on the wall. They dozed side to side, slowly, too slow for anyone in a hurry to notice.

I wished for Levi to come here. I wished for Levi not to come here. I wished for both because my brain was scattered. Even though it was purely impulsed, I could probably convince myself that I meant it. Did I really want to do that?

Damned if I did. Was tragically in love if I did. If I didn't, then I just got away with something.

Yeah. And I didn't want to hurt.

A gentle knock at the door. Someone else. Levi's knuckles were not that soft. I said, "Come in."

Ginger hair. Right-angled shoulders. Moved elegant like a puff of smoke. She came to kneel before me, on the floor. I watched her incline her head, exposing her crown. "I feel obligated to know you, Eren," she looked up at me.

I did not know how to respond. She clearly believed me to be a god. I wondered if she still would've liked me, had she known the truth.

"Please, don't kneel to me," I reached out but didn't touch her.

Petra slowly shifted into a seated position. "You're so kind," she said. I've gotten that a few times. The people who said it later found out that they were wrong.

"I'm just not worthy," I said.

"I knew it," her hand went to her chest, "Levi really snuck you here."

"Shit," I muttered. What did she mean by, 'snuck'?

She showed her palms in surrender. "I won't tell anyone, I promise."

I swallowed. Armin reacted similarly, and it now concerned me. "Why is it bad?" I asked.

"It's not bad, you're just very vulnerable."

"You know," I paused lengthily, "I think I'm just as vulnerable around my own kind."

She fell quiet, taking in my words. It reminded me of the first time I found out that animals ate each other alive in the wild. The grim realization of how sad life could be. I was young and saw the world through kaleidoscope glasses. Like the rest of the kids, there had to come a time when I took them off. Of course.

"We're not so different," her gaze dropped low. "I was hit by my husband a while ago. I've been fleeing."

She didn't see it coming?

I've tried to warm up to people. Namely, women. I could not talk to them. I think it stemmed from my dislike for my mother as a child. I don't remember why I started to hate her. I hated my sister, too, in houses with one toilet. She literally spent over an hour in the bathroom one time. I knew because I timed her.

It bled into my relationships. I did not hate women, I just struggled to align with them because I disliked my family, which was two-thirds women. I tried to change, but the household ran deep.

I saw Levi sneak in behind her. He stopped and leaned on the wall right past the door. No sound was made.

"I didn't mean to dump that on you," Petra rubbed her nape. "It was a month ago. I can kind of laugh at it now."

"I'm sorry," I blurted, like it was all I could say.

"That's what he kept saying. I'd rather him just beat me more instead," her smile was so wide and contradicting, I couldn't figure it out.

There was a sudden stillness in Levi's eyes. Like hummingbirds, they froze on the back of her head. His crossed arms stayed intertwined. He was an ancient text; I couldn't read any of him.

I laughed, once. It was a singular huff that came out of both my mouth and nose. She clearly made a joke, and I wanted to appease her. "Your humor is quite morbid," I said.

She lowered her head. "It's not for everyone," she said, not sounding so proud.

We may get along.

I never revealed Levi's position to her. It was like his being there did not affect anything. Somewhere along the way, he decisively slipped out of sight, leaving Petra and me to continue down the road of acquaintance.

We planted our sapling. Like the one I grew with him. I doubted, though, that this one would ever grow as many rings as the other. As our personalities felt each other out, I secretly took breaks to look at the door. At his ghost.

Did you hear that, Levi?

Oh, right, you left.

I kind of wished you had stayed. I wouldn't have minded if you even came to sit with us.

I knew she was your ex, but I was your best friend.

I felt like that should have canceled out. You should've added yourself.

Because, without you, she and I were zero.