Eren turned eighteen. Mikasa and Armin took him out to lunch at a waterside restaurant. They sat outside on a picnic bench and read seafood puns on the laminated menus. A band was playing reggae somewhere. The sun was warm on their necks but already sinking fast. The three friends sat and spoke with an embarrassed, adult-like detachment.

"I still haven't made up my mind yet. I've sent some applications out already. When I get those back I'll probably be able to narrow it down more," Armin was saying.

"You must have a ton of scholarships, though," Eren said. "You can go anywhere you want, I bet."

"I'm definitely staying in state. I know that at least."

"Good," Eren said. "It'd suck if y'all went to opposite sides of the country. Like—" He painted with the condensation on his cup. "Y'know?"

"Yeah," Armin said.

"Yeah," Mikasa said.

Eren raised his eyebrows at Mikasa. "Armin's gonna be the first one of us to lose his V-Card, huh? Upperclassmen girls, yeah?"

They laughed at Armin, making fun because he had betrayed them months ago by cutting his hair and changing his clothes. Now girls were asking to study with him left and right. He was too afraid of dropping the many hearts piled in his clumsy hands to refuse.

Armin said, "It's Mikasa who'll have a boyfriend to take back for Christmas."

Mikasa cupped her earlobes. "No."

"Yes," Armin said. "I'll make this face when it happens." He made a superior knowing face. Eren blew into his straw and a wrapper hit Armin's superior face like a dart.

"Mikasa won't get a college boyfriend."

"Huh?" Armin said, damaged and prim. "Why not?"

"Because—" Eren looked at Mikasa.

She tilted her head. "Uh-huh, why not?" Her new allegiance was clear.

"Because—" Eren struggled. "That'd be lame," he said.

"Lame!" Armin said, turning to Mikasa.

"Lame," Mikasa echoed tearfully. She gazed at the ground, profoundly engrossed in pretend depths of sorrow.

The sun made Eren's face look fat and sodden. "'Cause, you'll probably end up dating some loser! Like, a guy who calls movies 'kino' or some shit!"

His words came out in an ugly gush just as the waiter showed up with their fried shrimp plate. Eren closed his mouth. Armin thanked the waiter as he refilled their glasses. The waiter left.

"But seriously," Eren said. "Everyone gets lame when they go off into the real world. They get married and then have kids and might as well be dead after that. It makes me sick to my stomach."

Mikasa wrinkled her nose. "I never want to get pregnant."

Eren looked at her gravely. He was already dulled by imagined futures.

"People change," Armin said.

"Nah," Eren said. "Not me."

"We won't change," Mikasa promised him. She took her sweating glass and raised it.

Eren was looking at her with something like favoritism now. They lifted a birthday toast to the Wolf-Pack Army, and to all that they knew was impossible.

"Y'all ever get intrusive thoughts? Like, 'hey, I could climb over this fence and jump right now, and nobody could stop me.'"

Eren was leaning pensively on the fence to the big bridge. He wasn't even holding his rod. Silver fishing line trailed in the wind. Light spread lengthwise on his forearms. It was turning the hair on his wrists to gold fibers.

"The call of the void," Armin said. He was rummaging through his grandfather's weathered tackle box. "Most people get that people, I'm pretty sure."

"Oh, so I'm not the only one."

"I think about death a lot."

"Of course you do, Mikasa."

"Well, everybody's thought about throwing themselves in front of a truck and getting isekai'd."

"What the fuck does that mean, Armin?"

"I don't know why you'd fantasize about that. Armin already has a harem, anyway."

"I don't."

Eren scowled. "Y'all are weebs. I was trying to be deep and meaningful."

"Are you curious too? About what's on the other side?" Mikasa said. She opened her rod's bail. She cast in a pleasing arc and snapped the bail shut. Her lure splashed and struggled as she put artificial life into its movements.

Eren's lure bobbed untouched in the water.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it's not that I want to die. I'm just curious about it."

"I think maybe it's like nothing you've ever known," Mikasa said softly.

"There's probably nothing after death," Armin said.

Eren closed his eyes. His eyelids were setting suns, glowing in the light. "Maybe it's just like living. Maybe you won't even notice you ever died."

"That'd be nice," Armin said. "Living forever." He was being cynical.

"Really?" Eren said. His eyes were closed. Wind tossed stray strands of hair in his face. "I think it would be kinda scary."

"But you wouldn't know it."

"That's the scary part," Mikasa said.

Eren's rod jerked. He yelped and seized it before it could go over the edge. He suffered another hit and then the line was tight and dragging. The water thrashed as Eren reared his rod, and began to reel so fast his hand was a blur.

"Hey, that's a decent size snook, I think!" Armin said. "Hey— you're gonna lose him if you don't give him some room to run."

The line broke free. A ring of water spun out from where the fish had disappeared, and slowly faded.

"Aw," Eren said. They watched the water.

"Oh well," Armin said.

"You take it next time," Eren said, turning to Armin. "You're the master fisher."

"He's the master-baiter," Mikasa said.

"Please shut up."

The moon was a frozen bubble in the sky now. Mikasa had paid for lunch so Armin drove home in his own car and let Eren drive her home in his. Armin's carpool plan was also very sneaky. He gave Mikasa a secretive wave and a knowing smile before leaving. The two friends walked together downtown with a detached, adult-like embarrassment. They watched their shoes walk.

They came to the town's historic ice cream parlor, and Eren lunged to hold the door for an old couple coming out. He continued to hold the door for Mikasa.

"Oh— thanks," Mikasa said. Her face felt hot.

"No prob," Eren said. He stepped in after her.

They waited in line. Chocolate aromas varnished the 1950s-style interior. Eren and Mikasa selected their favorite ice creams and feuded over who was paying for dessert. Eren, the special Birthday Boy, lost and took his scoop grudgingly. They went outside and found a bench under a streetlamp to eat on. The lamp shone a warm cone of privacy on them. It was sort of romantic.

It was also night time, and they could talk about the weird stuff that they couldn't talk about during the day or when they were around Armin.

"Hey, Mikasa. Truth or Dare?"

"Um… uh, Dare."

"Oh." Eren frowned. He scrunched his brow. "Why do you always pick Dare? You're such a daredevil."

"Sorry. Ask me again. I'll pick Truth."

"Nah, it's fine, it's fine. Let me think. Okay, give the next car to pass by the bird."

A red station wagon came by. Mikasa gave it a black-taloned bird.

"Oh no, he had kids in the backseat." She roosted her bird in her other hand.

"Ha-ha, nice one." Eren's ice cream was melting onto his lap. He cleared his throat. "So, it's your turn."

"Okay. Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," Eren answered instantly.

Mikasa thought and couldn't come up with anything. She shrugged. "I don't know."

"What?" Eren laughed. "Come on! Ask me a question."

"What… what…"

"Not what!" Eren said savagely. Mikasa turned, surprised. "C'mon. What question always gets asked when you pick Truth?"

Mikasa asked this question instead: "Are you gay, Eren?"

Eren looked her in the eyes. "I'm usexual, actually." He showed teeth, tilted his head.

Mikasa felt as though she was trying to follow the game of a child who kept changing its rules. "You're… usexual? I've never heard of that before."

Eren banged his forehead with his palm. "You! Sexual!"

Mikasa took a thoughtful bite of her ice cream. She cringed and put a hand to her head. A kinetic thought jolted suddenly through her brain freeze. "Wait… did you just flirt with me?"

Eren groaned, bound by the implacable contract of Truth. "Yes!"

Mikasa was quiet. She took another bite. "But, what about Reiner?"

He sighed. "Reiner called me earlier, to wish me a Happy Birthday. We talked."

Mikasa thought about this. Boys fought easier than they talked. Hammering fists, broken faces, they were easier to reconcile than ruinous words.

Eren shifted and laced his fingers behind his head. "Reiner loves me."

"Oh!"

"He also loves you, and Armin, and your parents, and my mom. More than he loves his asshole dad."

"Oh."

Eren's eyes glittered in the night like sand particulates on a dark beach. "You're all gonna be gone soon, like Reiner. I don't get it. You grow up and leave and don't even think about living. You just do it. And then you're a different person and your life is nothing like it was."

"It still sucks, though," Mikasa finished. "You still miss how it was."

"Yeah. But I don't want to miss it. I want to not miss it."

Mikasa was quiet.

"I'm such a fucking baby."

Mikasa suddenly wanted to cry. She felt the embalmed urge well up inside. I like you the way you are. The colors she wore were the colors of invisibility. The things she loved were things she could never touch. I don't want you to change either.

Eren sighed again. "I wanted to kiss you again before you get a college boyfriend and forget about me."

"Nuh-uh. No college boyfriends. Just you."

"No college boyfriends?"

"Just my high-school dummy." Mikasa smiled. She wanted to cry.

They kissed and tasted each other's ice cream flavors. It didn't feel like something new though. It just felt like the end of something old.