HAPPY 4/13 FOR ALL YOU HOMESTUCK TRASH BABIES WHO HAPPEN TO BE READING THIS.
I told all 25 people following my tumblr blog that there would be an upd8. Well, here is your upd8.
Since I keep all my fandoms tossed together in my head like an exceptionally messy salad, I thought today seemed like a good day to post my next chapter. Hussie did it to his work of fiction, so I figured one of his fangirls might as well do the same. So for anyone who happens to come across this chapter and understands exactly how special this day is... good for you, bro.
This story has reached almost 700 hits on ao3 and I've stopped counting how many it's recieved on , since the story layout is a little more dated. But judging by the reviews I've gotten so far, I'd say I'm doing okay.
Okay?
Eh. I guess we'll figure that one out in the later chapters.
I honestly don't know why I keep doing this, but I'm gonna keep plugging my tumblr until I see some results. It's asking-appelia. Go follow it. It's pretty cool. Then again, I should probably fix my blog to make it look less fucking amateur if I want to get more followers. Also I am tracking the tags "fic: the monsters inside us" and "fic: tmiu" for this story. So if you want to post anything about it ever, tag it with those so I can find it and maybe make a page. That would be nice. Thanks.
Alright, done with this shit.
Story time.
I had known for a long time that things were coming to an end. But that didn't make the experience any less difficult when it happened.
It was for that very reason that I was almost afraid to go to the last official meeting of the Youth Cancer Support Group.
"Hey, Eren."
I glanced up at the front passenger seat to see Mikasa twisted around to face me. There was a twinge of concern in her calm, charcoal-black eyes. "Yeah?" I responded.
"Are you going to miss this after it's over?"
I sighed and rolled my eyes at her. "Mikasa, how could you think that I would miss having to go back to Trost twice a week?"
"I'm not talking about Trost," she said. "I mean the support group. You guys are going to have to find venues and schedule meetings by yourselves until next summer. I've heard it can get pretty difficult."
"What's with the word choice?" I asked.
"What word choice?"
"You're saying you guys. As if you're not going to be a member anymore. I thought you were a part of the group too."
"I am," she replied. "And I will be. Just not all the time."
"Not all the time?" I repeated, confused.
"Once the school year starts up again, I'm going to be busy," she explained. "I probably won't be able to make it to all of the meetings. You're going to have to keep track of this yourself from now on."
I sighed again and leaned back against the back seat of Clara's car. "I know."
No matter how much I hated it, everything she said was true. I had seen the dates on the flyer when she had brought it home that afternoon in the earlier days of summer. The support group only had permission to use the the conference room until the end of the August. After that, we'd be on our own. I didn't like the idea one bit. I was sure that without the scheduled meetings and with Mikasa in school instead of being consistently available to drag me out of the house when I needed to be dragged, I wouldn't be able to keep up with everything.
I had lost contact with all of my friends once before, and I had no desire to relive that horrible experience over again. Much to my surprise, I had gotten kind of attached over the summer. I wasn't ready to let the group go just yet. But there was only one more week before the school year started again, and after today the official meetings would stop. That was why I had decided to make sure I had everything tied nicely together before the meeting ended today. Just in case I couldn't manage all of the support group stuff when there was no longer an upper hand enforcing it, I wanted this last meeting to have a bit of finality to it.
Of course, I hoped that it wouldn't end up that way. And maybe I would be able to do this on my own. Who knew? No matter what the outcome actually turned out to be, I wanted everyone in the group (with a few exceptions) to know that I wanted to stay with them. I probably wouldn't be able to keep things together, and maybe if they knew how I felt they would be willing to help me stay connected to the group. It would sure as hell be easier than trying to trust myself with that kind of commitment. I still needed help. I wanted be sure that my feathers had grown in before I got pushed out of the nest. Otherwise I would just end up hitting the ground.
"You said to drop you off by the cancer center entrance, right?" Clara asked.
"Yeah. It's the one with all the windows and the automatic doors out front."
I had to thank Mikasa sometime for getting all her Shinganshina senior friends from the library to drive us to the meetings instead of our dad.
Clara's car pulled up in front of the wide glass-paneled doors. "This one, right?"
"Yep," Mikasa replied. She opened the door and slipped the strap of her messenger bag over her shoulder. "Thanks for the ride. I'll see you Sunday, right?"
"Of course. And I'll be back for the Haunted Library fundraiser in October. Remember, Sina's only forty-five minutes away."
I climbed out of the backseat and landed next to Mikasa on the asphalt. "Thanks, Clara," I said automatically. It was a little weird, getting favors from people I barely knew.
"See you guys later," she said, smiling at us through the open window.
"Good luck at Sina!" Mikasa called after her as she pulled away from the curb and drove off. We stood there for a second before she turned to me. "You ready?"
"Yeah," I replied. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Actually, there were at least a thousand reasons why I wasn't. But I didn't want her to know that.
Mikasa led the way through the automatic doors and down the hallway that we had walked through so many times before. It all felt so numb and routine by now. I had almost forgotten how it felt not having to come here twice a week. 4A's fake oak door was waiting for us, propped welcomingly open as it always was. We stepped through, and the rest of the group noticed our presence immediately. Then it all turned into a flurry of greetings, hugs, laughter and meaningless conversations.
God, I was going to miss this.
Armin grabbed a hold of me the second I stepped through the door and led me over to the circle of chairs that I had gotten so used to seeing. "Come on. We're setting up the schedule for September."
I didn't fight him. Not even when he sat me down directly next to Annie. She glanced over her shoulder and peered coldly at me past a side swept blonde fringe that hid almost half of her face. "Hey," I said casually. The only response she gave me was exhaling heavily and turning back to the printout calendar at the center of the circle. I sighed to myself. Yep, she still hates me.
Reiner was checking off spaces in the calendar with an orange pen from the bundle of colors clutched in his other hand. "If we want to stick to the same Tuesday-Thursday schedule, then I'll only be able to make these days for sure. It all depends on my hours, really."
"I thought your manager knew about the support group," Bertolt pointed out.
"He does. He just doesn't care."
"Hey, guys, did you notice who's here?" Armin chimed in, sticking himself into the chair next to Reiner and pointing at me.
The massive blonde looked up from the calendar and a blinding smile broke out on his face. "Eren! Hey there!" he boomed with enthusiasm that could only be outdone by Hanji. He handed off the calendar and pens to his boyfriend before standing up and pulling me into one of his bone-crushing bear hugs that I didn't hate nearly as much as I used to. I tried not to look like I'd been suffocating when he let me go. "How've you been?"
"I've been okay," I said, decidedly leaving out all the other complications that had been going on in my life. Other than those, I really was okay. At least as okay as I could get with mutated cells hanging out in my bone marrow.
"Great," Reiner replied warmly. "So. Last meeting today."
I nodded, just a little bit sadly. "Yeah."
"You gonna miss this place?"
"I see enough of the place as it is," I replied, crossing over to sit with Armin instead of Miss Silently Plotting Your Gruesome Death. "It's the group that I'm more worried about missing."
"Well, that's why we've got this," Bertolt said, waving the calendar at me. He passed the pens back to Reiner, who then held them out to me.
"Here. Pick a color, then write your name in the corner and mark off whichever days you'll be able to make it. We're trying to stick to the old three-to-four, Tuesday-Thursday schedule, but if that ends up falling through, we can work around it."
"Oh. Okay." I tentatively took a bright green pen from the collection and leaned over the calendar. "Um... I'd be free pretty much anytime, actually."
Bertolt looked up and raised his eyebrows. "Anytime?"
I shrugged, my face twitching into an embarrassed smile. "Yeah. I... don't really have much going on in my life. Other than this, I mean."
"Oh," Reiner said after an uncomfortable three seconds of silence. "Okay. Okay, great. I guess we can just skip you over then."
"Alright," I agreed. "You're going to want to talk to Mikasa, though. She always has a ton of stuff going on once the school year starts."
Reiner's face brightened up. "Good idea. Hey, Annie, can you go get Mikasa?"
The silent blonde nodded, stood up out of her chair and left the circle. I did the same and made my way over to the snack table. Normally I would have followed Annie just so I would have my sister to stick with again. But the support group meetings didn't count as "normally" situations anymore. I could handle myself here. Besides, she was probably off in some corner making out with Jean.
Yeah. They were still together.
It had been three weeks since Jean had practically proposed to her in my basement. And, surprisingly, their relationship hadn't fallen to pieces yet. It really seemed like it would at first. Seabiscuit had been texting Mikasa every night and had called her three times by the time their first week together was up. It pissed her off to no end. She called him out for it at one of the Thursday meetings, and he had somehow forced himself to back off after that. But even with Jean's clinginess on a leash, I still didn't think they would hold together much longer. I remembered the conversation I'd had with Levi at that same meeting when they had stepped out of the conference room to argue. I had bet my ass that Jean would be a single man before the end of August. But after the constant texting stopped, things actually started to smooth over. Jean took her out on a few dates. Mikasa went over to his house a few times. And she didn't hate every second she spent with him anymore. With every passing breakup-free day it seemed like I was losing. So I guess my ass now belonged to Levi.
Not that I would've minded giving it to him all that much.
I looked warily around the room as I picked a few Munchkins out of the box Hanji had brought. Now that I was thinking about him (again), wasn't he supposed to be here? I did a quick once-over of the room. It seemed like everyone was here but him. The second admin of the group was nowhere in sight.
I felt a sudden twist deep inside me. The thought crossed my mind before I could stop myself. Is he skipping out on the last meeting?
Out of all the people that I wanted to keep with me after the official meetings came to an end, Levi was probably the one that I hoped the most would decide to stay. He'd been the only one who I had known beforehand when I had first joined the support group. And over the weeks, we'd gotten pretty close. Or at least I had gotten close to him. I never really took Levi for the kind of person who got expressly "close" to people. Besides, I had already lost contact with him once. Now that he'd come back to me, I didn't want to let him go again so easily.
And then there was that little epiphany that I'd had in my basement three weeks earlier.
I bit viciously into one of my chosen Munchkins as the memory ran through my head. It had taken me so long to figure out what kind of feelings Levi had managed to stir up in me. And once I did, I wished I never had. I hadn't had a crush on anyone since eighth grade. And I had never had one as strong as this. There was a reason for that. Several, actually. One of them being that this was a crush on Levi.
On Levi.
I didn't think that even Mikasa could have known that I was into guys. Fuck. I hadn't even known I was into guys. Not until one started giving me butterflies every time I so much as thought of him.
A strange noise dragged me out of my head and back into reality. It sounded kind of like someone had crossbred a shark and a pug with a sinus infection, starved the offspring for three days and then dropped it into the middle of a bakery. Sasha was snatching up Munchkins from the boxes at the speed of light and cramming them into her mouth with the skill of a professional hamster. She slowed down for a second, then her head spun around and her eyes were on me. She drew in a tiny gasp and her overstuffed mouth turned up into a smile.
"Uhremm!" she cried out around a mouthful of half-chewed Munchkin. "Hmy! Efsh grd ff smg yrh!"
"Um... hi," I said, clueless as to what the hell she was trying to say.
Sasha forced her mouth shut and miraculously swallowed everything in it at once. "Omf... I can't believe it's the last meeting of the year," she said once the dough blockage was gone. "It's all gone by so fast."
"Yeah. It really has." Sasha's words rang in my ears. I had never realized how right she was until then. All of my summers for the past few years had all dragged by at an unbearably slow pace, spending day after day either trapped in the house or the hospital. But things had changed since then. And even though I had tried my hardest not to notice, the time had started to slip by me.
"So what are you going to be doing for the rest of the year?" Sasha continued innocently, plucking more Munchkins from the box. "You're not in school, so what do you do with all that time?"
"Um... not much, really," I replied. "I get homeschooled, so I have work from that, and I go out to do stuff with Mikasa sometimes... and I guess that's it."
"Hm. You've got a lot of free time, don't you?"
A tiny dose of disappointment tipped itself back and drained into me. "Yeah, I do."
Sasha laughed. "What I wouldn't give to know what that was like again." She popped a fresh Munchkin into her mouth. "Trust me, buddy. You are beyond lucky that you aren't in a regular high school anymore. It's basically a waste of 7 hours a day, and then you have to do all the work on your own time. It's ridiculous."
"I know. Mikasa tells me all the time."
"I don't know why they organize the way they do. It's completely- AH!" Sasha squealed as a pair of hands snuck up behind her and pinched her sides. She spun around and made a pouty face at Connie, who had appeared out of nowhere and was laughing uncontrollably.
"Gotcha!" he shouted. Sasha swatted him upside the head.
"What was that for?"
"Nothing. Just a reminder that you need to cut back on the munchkins. You've been looking a little on the chunky side of skeletal lately."
Sasha rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her rib-lined chest.
"Come on, Eren. You agree with me, don't you?" he said sarcastically, looking up at me. "Look at this. She's not a toothpick anymore. She's almost a twig! Maybe even a penc-" The rest of Connie's comment was cut short when Sasha grabbed his head, trapped it under her arm and rubbed her fist into the top of his fluff-coated head.
"Would you can it with the fat jokes? They don't even work on me!"
"Would you rather they be skinny jokes?" Connie gasped. Sasha mashed his face into her side and shut him up.
"Hey... um..." I murmured, trying to cut into their miniature bro-fight. Sasha looked up and raised her eyebrows, not allowing Connie to do the same. "Have either of you seen Levi around?"
It wasn't like I actually wanted to talk to him. In fact, I wanted to do anything but that, since I seemed incapable of talking to him without making myself look stupid, feel stupid or possibly both. I just wanted to know that he was there, and that I would get one last chance to see him. I had no idea how I would do on my own, and I didn't want to never see him again without at least saying goodbye first.
Even though the more that I overthought it, the more it sounded like that would be for the best.
"No," Sasha said, still holding Connie hostage. "I don't think anyone has, actually."
"Oh. Okay." I started off towards the circle.
"Why were you asking?" Connie asked, struggling out from under Sasha's arm and straightening up. "Are you worried about him or something?"
"No," I said without looking back.
Halfway across the room I changed my mind and decided to go over to another corner of the room. Jean and Mikasa had joined the little gaggle around the calendar and were picking out days when they would be able to make the meetings of the off season. Jean had Mikasa sitting in his lap, his arms around her waist. I thought very seriously about running over and ripping his chair out from under him as I leaned back against the wall and slowly depleted my handful of Munchkins. I decided against it, since Mikasa was sitting in his lap and would probably throttle me if she hit the floor and it was my fault.
A minute later, I wasn't alone anymore.
"Hey, Eren," Marco said brightly as he approached the wall and stood next to me.
"Hey," I replied flatly around the ball of dough in my mouth.
Marco leaned back against the wall and looked over at the circle where his best friend and my best sister were cuddling like the happy fucking couple that I wished they weren't. "They're kind of cute together, aren't they?" he said.
I glanced sideways at him, my eyes falling instinctively into a glare. "You actually think that?"
"Of course I do. Just look at them." He nodded over at them, a daydreaming smile on his face. Mikasa giggled as Jean stuck a playful little kiss on her nose. "They're adorable."
"I guess," I deadpanned. I stared blankly at the two of them, the sight so sickening that I couldn't look away. Ugh. Not even Reiner and Bertolt's shameless PDA against a car had bothered me as much as this.
Marco glanced over at me, his smile starting to fade. "Something wrong?"
I shook my head. "No. Just... thinking."
"Is it because it's the last meeting?"
"Yeah." The lie came out all too easily.
"We're going to have more after this, you know. They just won't be at the hospital anymore."
"Is Levi going to be-"
I stopped myself before the rest of the question could slip out. Stop it, Eren. What the hell are you saying?
"Hm. I don't know," Marco said. He hadn't even needed to hear the rest to know what I had just barely avoided asking. "He didn't come to any of the meetings in the off season when he was an admin last year. But things seem a little different this year, for some reason."
I blinked and was finally able to rip my eyes away from Jean canoodling with my sister. "Different?"
"Yeah. In a lot of ways, really. He never used to get into the group activities before. He didn't talk to anyone at the meetings, didn't come to any of the unofficial meetings, never went to any of the groupwide stuff we did outside of Trost... He was pretty much the ghost of the group. Just haunting the meetings and never really doing much."
"So the Bad Movie Nights, and that time in my basement..."
"This is the first year he's done any of that. It's so weird. Last year it was like he wanted nothing to do with us, and now..." He flicked his hand around in a circle like he was a magician making tissue paper disappear. "Poof. He's like another person."
"Wow. Weird." Hope bubbled up in the back of my mind and I did my best to pop it before it rose to the surface. "Why do you think that is?"
"No idea," Marco said with a shrug. "It's nice, though. He seems a lot happier like this."
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "You can tell?"
Marco laughed to himself. "Not really. But I like to think so."
I looked past the circle and at the door on the other side of the room. Hanji would probably be calling us into the circle soon. It didn't seem like anyone was outside. There was no way Levi was going to show up at this rate. Of all the times he could have chosen to skip out on a meeting, it had to be the last one of the summer.
Hanji's voice rang out above the murmur of the support group. "Alright, kids! Circle up!"
All of us gathered into the circle without a second to spare. Mikasa had relocated from her former place next to me to the closest empty seat to wherever Jean was. She slid into the chair next to him, her leg bumping up against his. Marco sat down on the other side of him. completing his little cocoon of happiness with romance on one side and friendship on the other. I glared at him and he didn't care. Good. For. Fucking. Him.
"Hey," a voice next to me said. "Sorry about earlier. They just needed me to help work out the calendar stuff. Apparently everyone wants me to be their organizer now."
I turned to see Armin settling into the chair next to mine. "It's okay," I said, a smirk crawling onto my face. "I did just fine without you."
Armin rolled his eyes. "What a great self-esteem boost you are, Eren."
I laughed under my breath and poked him, earning myself a mock-annoyed slap on the wrist before Hanji clicked her pen incessantly against her plastic clipboard to get everyone's attention. "Hey! Guys! Last meeting! We want to be productive today!"
"Um, we just spent the entire pre-meeting time making sure that this won't be the last meeting," Reiner cut in.
"Fine. The last official meeting," Hanji elaborated. "Anyways..."
"Anyways, there are people who still haven't marked days on the calendar and you know who you are. We will find you!" Bertolt interjected, finishing up what his boyfriend started.
"Okay, okay. Jesus christ on a stick." Hanji pushed her glasses up on her nose and recomposed herself. "Since this is the last meeting, we want to make sure we get everything we can out of it. So..." Her eyes swept through the circle, a devious smirk tugging at her lips. "If anyone has anything they haven't shared with the group yet, I want to get everything out in the open today."
"Okay," Jean said snobbishly (As if he could say it any other way). "How are you going to do that?"
"We're going to play a little something I call the Lying Game."
Marco sighed and dropped his head into his hands. "Oh god, not this again..."
"Okay," Reiner ventured. "You gonna tell the new kids how to play?" He didn't seem the least bit nervous. Not only had he probably played this before, but he knew he had nothing to hide. To us, Reiner Braun was an open fucking book.
"It works like this," Hanji began. "I'll start by picking out a random person from the group, and I'll ask them to tell me something about someone else that they think the group doesn't already know. And if the person who you've decided to expose tries to stop you, they have to finish up what you were going to tell us themselves. If the original teller knows the other person is lying, then they get the story back and they can finish it the way they were originally going to. If too many people in the group already know what their fact is, they have to find another one to tell us. In other words, there's no way of getting out of this. So let's get started, shall we?"
I felt my stomach drop out of its place and land somewhere near my feet. Of all the things Hanji could have devised for the last day, it had to be this.
The lone admin crossed her legs in front of her and scanned the group. "I'll start with someone easy..." she said pensively, then narrowed her eyes and pointed in front of her. "Marco."
The freckled messiah sat bolt upright, his head abruptly separating from his hands. "Huh? Me?"
"Yes, you." Hanji smirked. "Tell us something we don't know about..." She scanned the group. "Jean."
Marco glanced nervously over at his best friend, who fixed him with a glare that said You'd better not make this embarrassing, Freckles. He sighed and turned back to the group. "Okay. Something you don't know... um... well, about a month ago, before Jean asked Mikasa out, I was over at his house and I needed to write something down for him, so I went over to his desk to look for a pencil, and I found this-"
"W-Wait, no! No, not that one!" Jean shouted out, stopping Marco mid-sentence. His friend stared at him, dumbfounded.
"What? I didn't think this one would be that bad."
"It is! Come on, she's right there! Pick something else!"
"But I already-"
"Let him finish, Jean!" Connie protested.
Hanji chimed in. "Yeah, I liked where this was going!"
Well, that was how I found out about Jean's shitty love poetry for Mikasa.
The Lying Game continued in a similarly loud and awkward fashion. I found out about Reiner's secret love for the Spice Girls, made a note not to leave Ymir unattended around plastic knives and learned why I should never trust Connie to toast my marshmallows if I valued my hair's safety. Apparently Hanji thought that the best way to close the summer session would be to force the entire group to participate in a nice, friendly game of screwing each other over. As a man who hadn't had much experience in party games for several years prior to joining the group, I had an excuse for having forgotten what would eventually happen. The way these games always go, if they last long enough, they always come around full circle. No one escapes. And before I knew it...
"Okay, Armin, I want you to tell us something we don't know about Eren!"
My spine snapped straight and I looked reflexively at my best friend sitting next to me. He glanced nervously over at me. I could practically see the story I had told him weeks earlier flitting across the surface of his complicated little brain. Don't tell them, I tried to telepathically beg him. Please don't tell them that. Anything but that.
"Alright. Um... Most of you guys know that Eren was in Trost for liver surgery last year."
God fucking dammit, Armin, can't I trust you to do anything right?
The entire support group turned to stare at him. And, indirectly, me. I could already feel my blood starting to well up in my face. This was all going so downhill, so fast.
"And... Levi was his nurse."
The room went silent for a second. I looked around the circle, my heart shuddering in my chest. Armin stared blankly at the circle and didn't say another word. I was on the edge of collapsing with relief. Was that it? Was he finished?
"And?" Connie prompted, waiting for my friend to fill in the gaps.
"And nothing. That's it."
"That's your big mystery fact, Eren?" Jean asked, sounding more than a little disappointed.
"Y-yeah," I stammered, trying not to sound too relieved. "I knew Levi before I joined the support group. Or I did, for a while. That's it." I smiled, satisfied with my performance. Smooth as always, Eren.
Hanji grinned mischievously at the both of us. "I knew that already!"
Armin's face fell a bit. "But... that still counts, right?"
"Hmmmm..." Hanji sat back in her chair, nibbling thoughtfully on the end of her pen. "Let me think... did any of you guys know that?"
Mikasa spoke up. "Well, I did, but I've known him forever, so..."
"Anyone else?" Hanji chirped, looking expectantly around the circle. "Any takers? No?"
And, just like that, Jean Kirschstein happened.
"Um, actually, I did know about that," he cut in, raising his hand as if we couldn't tell who was speaking by the arrogant tone in his voice. "Mikasa told me while we were out on a date last week."
As my luck would have it, no one spoke up to point out that there was no way that could be true. I glared at him, trying to channel as much hate in his direction as humanly possible. Wow, spreading lies and flaunting your relationship at the same time. Way to multitask, Jean.
"Really?" Hanji said, glancing curiously at him. "Well, that's three members. Looks like you're going to have to go deeper, Armin." She returned her hawk-like gaze to Armin, who seemed to shrink back into his chair.
"Deeper? I-I don't know if... Well, if you really need to know, then-"
"Armin," I said. "Don't."
My friend turned towards me, his clear blue eyes wide and his cheeks flushed with nerves. His face was practically screaming EREN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? I HAD A PLAN!
It took a second for me to realize what I had just done.
"Shit."
"Well, Eren? You want to tell us a little more about this story?"
I turned toward Hanji, my face starting to burn all over again. "I-I really don't know what he-"
"Hey, no lying in the Lying Game!" the LPN from hell proclaimed. "You definitely knew what he was going to say, since you stopped him from saying it. Rules of the game state that you have to tell us yourself. Now spill."
I froze in my seat, my throat tight and my heart slamming restlessly against my ribs. My head whipped around, trying to look at every member of the group at once. They were all staring at me.
What do they expect me to tell them?
"Um... I..."
I could always just lie about it. None of them knew the truth about what happened. None of them even knew that it had happened at all. Except Mikasa. And Armin. And Hanji, if Levi happened to have told her. And if Hanji knew, I was beyond fucked.
"Okay... um... last summer, I-"
The door opened and cut me short.
"Oi, I'm here. Nobody panic."
I spun around in my chair. It was all I could do not to melt into a puddle of relief. He was here. He'd finally shown up.
My nurse-turned-social-savior shut the conference room door behind him and headed to the circle, dropping into the last empty chair available. It just so happened to be next to me.
"Hey, brat," he said casually to me before turning to address the group. My heart had a small seizure before finally collapsing from exhaustion. "Sorry I'm late. I got caught up in pediatric oncology. Erwin needed me on hand for something."
Hanji smiled brightly at him. "So that's where you've been all this time."
"Yeah," Levi said flatly, fixing her with his usual deadened stare. "Was I having auditory hallucinations in the hallway, or did I hear you guys publically humiliating each other in here?"
"Of course we weren't," Hanji said innocently. "We were just-"
"Hanji had us play the Lying Game until you showed up," Marco blurted out.
Everyone in the group turned to stare at him. He stared nonchalantly back.
Freckled Jesus strikes again.
"Hanji," Levi said, his voice sharp. "I told you we don't do the Lying Game anymore. Ever. You remember what happened last time."
Hanji sighed, looking defeated. Annie decided at that moment to tug on Bertolt's sleeve and whisper something in his ear. He straightened up once she'd finished and said, "Annie wants to know what happened last time."
Hanji blushed so fast that I was surprised her glasses didn't fog up. "We don't talk about that anymore."
"But you were the one who brought the Lying Game back," Levi countered. "Now it's your turn. I'd say it's only fair."
Hanji just about fell to pieces explaining how "what happened last time" meant the time she accidentally made one of the YCSG kids cry while talking about his symptoms for the sake of the Lying Game. The group had made an agreement to never play it again after that incident. But, of course, that rule only applied when Levi was supervising.
As far as I could tell, it would now apply at all times.
The rest of the meeting went by far less painfully. Most of the feelings that the group had to share were worries about how this was the last official meeting of the year, they might not be able to keep up, they want to stay with all the awesome friends they had made over the summer and whatever else. The memory of Levi's words from the first few weeks echoed in the back of my mind.
Odds are, at least one or two of them are going to end up going terminal. I've seen kids die their way out of YCSG before. It happens every year.
I shivered and tried to push the thoughts away. I was here with the people that I had learned to call my friends right here and now. I tried my hardest to focus on that and nothing else. I didn't want to think about which one of them I would be losing first.
But old habits die harder than cancer victims. I thought about it anyway.
Four in the afternoon came far too soon.
We tried to ignore it for as long as we could. I noticed one or two of the members glancing nervously at the clock hanging up on the wall of the conference room. I risked a few myself. Eventually we stopped looking. And we just stayed and kept talking. And talking. And talking.
The only reason we ever stopped was the nurse who tapped on the conference room door nearly half an hour after the meeting was supposed to end.
Hanji glanced up at the clock and squealed. "Oh my god! Is that seriously what time it is?" She shot up out of her chair and dashed to the door. "Hi, Gunther," she said to the tan, spiky-haired nurse standing outside. "Can we help you?"
"No. I'm just here to let you guys know that they're going to need 4A for the autoimmune diseases seminar at five thirty," he replied matter-of-factly. "You guys might want to clear out sometime soon."
"Oh. Thanks for telling us. We'll be getting right to it." Hanji shut the door without another word and turned around to face the group. She took in a deep breath and let it out in a long, dejected sigh. "Well... You guys heard him. You know what this means."
And, just like that, the last official meeting of the summer was over.
A few of us stayed behind to help clean up the snacks and put the furniture back where it was before us cancer teens had come in and screwed it all up. Ymir said that her shoulder was starting to ache, so she and Krista left first. Once conference room 4A looked normal again, the entire group moved outside. Marco's ride had been waiting in the parking lot since four, so everyone got a quick hug from the resident half-human and Jean took a quick taste of the inside of Mikasa's mouth. (Right in front of me. How fucking shameless can you get?) Connie called his mom to let her know that support group had run late, and he left next, taking Sasha with him. Armin was next. Then Annie. Reiner and Bertolt, since they had their own car, were the last to leave. Then it was just Mikasa and me.
"Dad's supposed to be picking us up today, isn't he?" I deadpanned.
Mikasa exhaled sharply through her nose. "Yeah."
At least the meeting had run late so we wouldn't have to be standing here nearly as long.
I just barely heard the quiet shiff sound of the automatic glass-paneled doors of the cancer center entrance sliding open over the low, steady hum of activity in the parking lot. Mikasa was playing with her phone and didn't bother looking up, so I had to be the one to look over and see who it was.
I never thought that it would be Levi and Hanji.
"Hey, kids," Hanji sang, catching Mikasa's attention as well as mine. "Didn't think you'd still be here."
"We did," Mikasa said. "It's pretty much a rule of thumb now that our dad is always late."
"That's an unfortunate rule to be keeping," Levi murmured, leaning up against the wall next to me. Hanji moved over to Mikasa and the two of them flanked us like a pair of LPN bookends.
"It's not his fault, really. He's just really busy at work," Mikasa quickly said. I looked over at her, my eyes narrow. You just go ahead and keep on believing that, Mikasa.
"What are you guys doing out here?" I asked, trying to drag the conversation away from my dad.
"We snuck out to see if you two were still hanging around," Hanji said. "And look at that. You are!"
"But don't you guys have work to do or anything?"
"Erwin's got another four nurses in his staff. I'm pretty sure he won't miss us if we slip outside for a few minutes," Levi answered. "Just until your ride shows up."
I let a quiet laugh slip out, looking at him with a smile playing at my lips. "You guys came out just to see us?"
"No, we came out because we love to stare at parked cars in our spare time."
"Levi," Hanji grumbled, casting a goggled glare at her fellow admin. She turned her attention back to me and Mikasa. "He's joking, of course. We want to stick with you guys as long as we can. You two are going to be staying through the off season, right?" She stared hopefully at the two of us, her eyes practically sparkling.
"Yeah," I said as quickly as I could. "I-I think so, anyway."
"Of course we are," Mikasa reaffirmed, giving me a sharp nudge in the ribs. "He's not dropping out of the group just yet."
Hanji tilted her head. "What about you?"
"Well, I'm going to be a little busier during the year, but I'll still try to make it whenever I can." Mikasa finished off with a smile.
"Good," Hanji chirped, her face lighting up. "We can't wait to see you guys somewhere other than this lousy old popsicle stand." She nodded back towards the massive brick wall behind us.
Hanji kept on talking after that. But I'm not sure what it was about, since I stopped listening to her after about two sentences. I started gazing at Levi, hoping relentlessly that he wouldn't notice. My head was floundering in an endless sea of feelings. If what Marco said was true, this could be the last time I'd be seeing him. After this, he would drop out of my life all over again. I might see him if I joined the support group again next summer. But even then, there was a string of ten months between then and now. And in that time span, just about anything could happen.
Stupidly, I opened my mouth and murmured his name.
"Levi?"
He turned toward me and his eyes met mine, sending a crackle of energy running down my spine. "Yeah, brat?" he responded, his voice just as level as ever.
"Are you going to be staying with the group in the off season?" I asked. I caught the note of wistfulness in my voice and pretended that I hadn't. "I-I'm just wondering," I added as casually as I could.
Levi let out a long, drawn-out sigh. "I don't know, Eren. Maybe," he said with a shrug. "I'll have to see how my classes at Sina are this year and how my hours at Trost work out."
"But if it was up to you, would you?"
Levi was quiet for a long time. My heart sank lower with every second that ticked by. Then he spoke up again.
"It sucked less this year than it did last year. So yeah. I probably would."
"Why?" I asked before I knew what I was saying.
"There was a lot of improvement in the attendance," he said flatly, as if he were talking about statistics. He glanced over at me, and my heart did a swan dive straight onto the pavement.
I had no idea what the hell that was supposed to mean. But what the hell had I expected him to say? You? I shouldn't have been so fucking ridiculous.
A few minutes later, my dad's silver Highlander pulled into the parking lot. This was it. It was the last official meeting of the year, and we finally had to leave.
Mikasa and I stepped away from the brick wall behind us and turned towards the two LPNs who had become admins, then our friends over the course of two and a half months. "Well," I said, my voice rasping on the way out. "I guess this is it, then."
Hanji gave the both of us a heartfelt smile. "Only until the next meeting. I'll text you guys the time and place, once we work it out."
"Okay," Mikasa agreed, giving Hanji a small nod and the slightest of smiles.
I glanced sideways at her, my eyebrows raised. "You have Hanji's phone number?"
"Yeah. We exchanged when I signed us up. It was just a requirement," she said pointedly to me. "I'll give it to you later."
I sighed and gave her an acquiescent look, then straightened up and looked over my shoulder at the parking lot. My dad was pulling up to the curb next to us. I caught a glimpse of his face through the passenger window. He looked tired. No surprise there, since he spent almost every hour of his life in that stupid lab of his.
"Hope we'll see you again soon, kids," Hanji cooed. She stepped forward from the wall and stretched her arms out toward us. I stared at her for a second, and she flicked her fingers toward herself to reinforce the invitation. "Come on, then."
Mikasa went in for the hug first, wrapping her arms around Hanji and squeezing with the deadly force that her MMA arm muscles gave her. Hanji squeaked, but didn't complain. My sister glanced backwards at me. "Get over here."
I did as I was told and got whatever life was left in me squeezed out by Hanji. "You'd better be showing up at our next meeting. You hear me, basket case?"
"Okay, okay, I will," I laughed. I didn't know that I had gotten another nickname. There was no question as to how I'd earned it.
Once Hanji finally released me from her emotional death grip of a hug, I looked over at Levi. I couldn't help myself. If he wasn't going to stay with the group when it went unofficial, then this would be the last time I saw him. And I wanted to keep my mental picture of him as clear as it could possibly be. Memorizing him would be enough. He wasn't going to come up and hug me like Hanji.
Except he did.
I stopped in the middle of my staring and froze. My legs went numb and my insides turned into slush. Levi was pressed up against me. His arms were around my waist. He was squeezing me.
I heard the faint noise of my heart exploding into a million pieces.
"L-Levi..." I choked.
"I don't do this for many people, so... if you can, accept it, okay?" he grumbled into my shoulder.
I threw my arms around him without question. "I didn't think you were the type for hugging."
"I'm not. Not with most people, anyway."
Warmth blazed through me as if someone had lit a fire in my bones. "Does this mean I'm not most people anymore?"
"Nope." Levi's arms loosened and he took a step back. "Congratulations, brat. You've graduated."
"So... am I going to see you again after this?" I asked, silently begging him not to see the blush that I felt burning in my cheeks.
"Maybe," he said. His lips curved into a small smile. It was probably the first time I had ever seen one come from him. "I'll see you around, brat."
The passenger door of the Highlander slammed shut behind me. I looked over my shoulder. Mikasa was already strapped in. I forced myself to turn away, open the back seat door and climb in.
I still looked back at the last second and flashed Levi a smile. "See you, nurseman."
My dad stepped on the gas, and we left. That was it.
I didn't talk much on the ride home. Of course, Mikasa made the most of the short fifteen minutes we had with our Dad. It was probably the longest we would be seeing him that day. Despite how detached he was from our lives, he'd still somehow known that it was our last official meeting that day. So he rapid-fired questions at us, Mikasa did all the answering, and I sat in the back seat and watched the both of them with my mouth practically bolted shut.
"So this is the last meeting for you guys, huh?"
"Yeah. Well, officially. The group's permission to use the conference room runs out at the end of the month, but they're still going to try and meet up now and then."
"Are you going to try and stick with them?"
"Well, I'm going to do the best I can. You know how busy I get."
"Of course I do. It's like you've never got enough to do, but you still somehow balance everything. Don't know how you do it. You must be some kind of supergirl."
Mikasa laughed a little. "I do my best. I'm pretty sure Eren's going to be able to make it to all of the new meetings, though. Really, he needs it more than I do."
"Mikasa, he's right there."
"Oh, relax. He's heard this all before."
"Well? Is she right, Eren?"
I jumped in my seat at the sound of my name. "Huh?" I mumbled, blinking like a small child with sandbox in its eyes. My dad had been speaking to me. I'd almost been too busy resenting him too notice.
"Hm." My dad glanced over his shoulder for a second before turning back to the road. "He must have left his brain back at Trost. You alright there, kiddo?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." Wow. It was so much easier to lie to someone I barely saw.
"So you still haven't told me. How was support group for you all summer?"
"Oh... um... It was okay, I guess," I said noncommittally.
"Eren's made a ton of friends," Mikasa cut in, answering the question for me. "And, Dad, do you remember that nurse that he had last summer when he had the surgery?"
"His nurse?" my dad mused, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in thought. "His name was Levi, wasn't it? Never got to know him very well. He always struck me as a little..." He shrugged, seeming unsure as to how to finish his commentary.
"He was one of the admins of the group."
"He was?" my dad exclaimed, as if it were the most astounding thing in the world. "Well. What are the chances of that happening? How was it seeing Levi again, Eren?"
It was unbelievable. It was the most unlikely coincidence that fate had just happened to throw at me. It was like having my only friend walk out of my life and suddenly decide to walk back in again. In fact, that was exactly what it was. Levi had become my friend all over again. And then something more. Or at least he had in my mind. And holy fucking christ, Dad, you could not even begin to imagine what I am feeling right now.
"It was kind of weird when it first happened. But being able to see him again was nice."
"It was nice? That's it?" Clearly my reply was a little more concise than what my dad had been expecting.
I shrugged. "There's really not much I an say to describe it."
"Alright," my dad said. I took note of the mild tone of defeat in his voice. "So, you want to tell me a little about all the friends you guys made? And... your, er... the other guy?" I almost laughed. My dad seemed just as averse to Mikasa's relationship with Jean as I was. But then again, he was averse to just about any relationship Mikasa got into. I guess not liking the person your daughter is dating is just a universal Dad Thing.
Mikasa launched into an elaborate description of everyone we'd met through YCSG so far. She talked about how enthusiastic Hanji was about everything she did, the way Reiner had been adopted as the group's communal big brother, Bertolt's slight limp when he walked because of the prosthetic bones in his legs, Sasha's scary eating habits, the way Connie always acted high even though he was far too sick to have ever touched drugs in his life, Armin's college courses and hidden musical talent, and everything else that I had noticed about the group and decided to keep to myself. The discussion took up the entire ten minutes left of the car ride. The Highlander pulled into our driveway just as Mikasa finished up explaining that Levi's face still hardly changed its expression at all.
"Well, here we are," my dad said with feigned enthusiasm. "I've got to get back to the lab. Ellari's probably left me a billion texts updating me on how the staphylococcus culture is reacting to the new cocktail we've given them."
"Alright. We won't keep you," Mikasa said. She reached an arm across the car to give our dad a quick side-hug. "See you tonight?"
"I'll try to get home at a reasonable time," he replied with a tired smile. "See you later, Eren."
"See you." I climbed out of the car and shut the door behind me. "If you're even here later," I grumbled under my breath once I knew he couldn't hear me. My dad backed out of the driveway and took off down the street, disappearing around the corner. I turned and marched towards the door, my hand digging in my pocket for my keys.
"He's trying, you know," a voice behind me said. I turned around. Mikasa was standing there, watching me with one hand playing with the fringe of her scarf.
"I know he is," I deadpanned as I jammed my key into the lock and twisted. The door opened and I stepped inside.
Mikasa was right. He was trying. He just wasn't trying hard enough.