I HAVE BREACHED 1000 AO3 HITS. I AM NOW ON A HIGHER TIER OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. THANK YOU.

Thanks for reading, reviewing, and especially for waiting so long for the new update. Now that I have the time to write, I swear I'll update on a more consistent basis. This fanfiction has been in progress for over a year, and the setting of the story and the time in which I am writing it are so out of sync, I'm surprised I can get into the right mood to write it. It's been so long, and it's still barely even half-finished.

(insert shitty dead Marco joke here)

Anyway, I'll try to make as many chapters as possible over the next two months. Then when I once again have no time for anything, I'll have a ton of material to post on its own. Yay.

Again, I want to thank volatileSoloiste and frozenheart23 for betaing my work and letting me know how many feels I am capable of causing. Your comments make me feel so important.

Also, good news. In case the last update didn't reach all of you, I reconstructed my tumblr! I am now the-angstiest-author. This way if I start having issues with my username again, I can change it again as long as it still has "angst" somewhere in the mix. Also, I am tracking the tag "fic: the monsters inside us" and "fic: tmiu," in case anyone has anything they want to post. My ask is open as well, if you have any angry letters to send me.

Right. I think that's enough updates.

Story time.

Captain's log. Stardate: October fifth. Year unknown. I have begun to lose track of time in this inescapable place. Still no contact with the outside world. Communication has been spotty, at best. Supplies are running low. I haven't been outside in what could be years. I fear the end is drawing near. It may only be so long.

"Eren, what the hell are you doing?"

I sat up and threw back the blanket I had draped over my head. "What?"

Mikasa leaned against the frame of my bedroom door, a weird look on her face. "Um... you're in a blanket tent."

"Of course I am," I said. "I'm writing a journal entry." I nodded down at the notebook splayed open on the bed in front of me and the pen laying beside it.

Mikasa cocked an eyebrow. "And that requires a blanket tent?"

"We'll you've basically forced me into an open door policy, and I need at least some measure of privacy," I said with a gesture at my gaping bedroom door.

"What do you think I'm going to do, sneak in here and read over your shoulder all about how much you want Levi's dick?" she asked, so much sarcasm in her words that it made my ears hurt.

I glared at her, willing my eyes to look as angry and soulless as possible. "I already told you. I'm getting over him."

"O-kay," Mikasa said indifferently, looking away from me and out into the hallway.

"What if I started making fun of you because you actually like that horse-faced douche canoe?" I continued, even though I had no clue if she was still listening. "What's his name again? Jean... no, it was Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit Kirschtein."

Mikasa turned back and glowered at me. "You already do. In fact, you just did," she said pointedly. She folded her arms across her chest and got comfortable leaning back against the doorjamb. "At least he actually had the courage to ask me out."

I rolled my eyes and sighed through my nose. "It's a lot more complicated than that. We've been through this already."

And now it was Mikasa's turn to do the sassy eye-roll-and-nasal-sigh thing. "Fine. Whatever."

I flipped the notebook cover shut and raked my hair back from my face. It was starting to get a little on the long side. I would have to ask her to cut it sometime. "I haven't seen him lately."

"You haven't seen anyone lately."

"Are you guys even still together?"

I know what you must be thinking. Eren, she's your sister. Wouldn't you know if she had broken up with Jean? Don't you two share a telepathic connection or something? Well, let me just clear a few things up. After my mom died, Mikasa had lost her ability to freak out about most things, especially things as stupid as high school breakups. She probably wouldn't have even mentioned breaking up with Jean unless I asked her. Also, in case you haven't noticed, I had kind of been living inside of my own head for the past week and a half. If my house had gotten smashed by a meteor, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed.

And Mikasa was the telepathic one. Not me.

"Yes, of course we are," she said, her mouth curving up into a smug little smirk. "He's taking me out for a date on Thursday."

Well, isn't that just fan-fucking-tastic for you, I thought bitterly as I jammed my pen into the spiral of my notebook. I swung my legs over the bed to put it on my dresser and glanced at the clock in the meantime. It was almost ten.

"Is dad home yet?" I asked.

Mikasa shook her head. "No. He's normally back by now, though. He hasn't texted me or anything. What about you?"

I looked apathetically at her. "You know I never check my phone."

She sighed and looked down, suddenly fascinated by her plum-painted toenails. "Maybe he's out with some colleagues or something."

"Who even knows what he's doing anymore?" I asked rhetorically.

"Not me. That's for fucking sure."

I glanced at the clock again. "Why are you still up? Don't you have school tomorrow?"

"I was waiting for dad to come home," Mikasa said, sounding defeated. "I guess there's really not much point anymore. I think I'm gonna go to bed."

"Okay," I said. I stopped by my doorway to give her a quick hug. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Eren." Then she slinked off down the hallway and closed her bedroom door behind her.

I did the same to mine, then ran back to my dresser and stuck my journal back into its hiding place between the furniture and the wall. It wasn't really a journal, in the most literal sense. It was really just a notebook that I kept around and wrote in whenever I felt like it. And the things I scribbled down were rarely ever actual entries. Sometimes it was just a quote, a certain sentence that I thought of and liked, a funny scenario I came up with, always something different every time I opened it up and scrawled something into the pages. The only thing about it that had any continuity were the dates scribbled in the corner of the page.

Once my journal had been stuffed back into the tiny sliver of space, I immediately pulled it out again. I cracked it open and started flipping back through the pages. This was the third notebook that I'd kept ever since I had started writing, back when I was around twelve, right before I was diagnosed. I knew I had the other two stashed somewhere in my closet. I made a mental note to go looking for them sometime.

I felt the soft, misty sensation of nostalgia wafting into my soul as I flipped backward through the pages. Eventually they came to an end, and I was staring at the inside of the front cover. I gazed at the first date I'd written down in the page corner. I had been scribbling my thoughts down in this cheap little notebook for almost two years. I began turning the pages forward again, watching the dates slowly grow later and later. My entries had always been sporadic. But the writing in this journal was weirdly sparse. Some of the gaps between entries were months long. My past two notebooks had been spent within a year. But this one was different.

I'd been using it for two years and the pages were barely even half-full.

I flicked through the pages again and looked at the gaps. Nine days. Two weeks. Three weeks. Six. Two whole months went by without a single entry. It seemed like I'd been writing less and less lately. I flicked back to the last entry before the one I had currently made. It was dated back in April.

I had been really slacking off on my writing lately.

I closed the cover and tossed my notebook onto my bed. I didn't have anywhere to go tomorrow. I definitely had enough spare time to catch up on this. I followed the haphazard path of my notebook and settled down onto the bed in front of it. After flipping the cover open to the next empty page and dragging a few pillows down to the end of my bed to get into my writing position (lying on my stomach with my upper body propped up on pillows to keep my arms free), I de-crammed my mechanical pencil out of the spiral and put it to the paper. I didn't bother putting the date down in the corner. I had already added it to my fake little "captain's log."

It had been three days since my episode and Mikasa's intervention. The whole death-hysteria was finally starting to wear off. I was getting better. At least I thought I was. I couldn't really judge for myself, since I was absolute shit at knowing what constitutes "emotionally stable." But things were going okay, as far as I could tell. I hadn't broken down since Saturday night. I had gone out on Sunday to see Mikasa's tournament (Which she won, obviously.). I hadn't really gone anywhere else yet. But I hadn't had any reason to. The YCSG meeting on Monday had been out of the question. Then my tutor had come in for a visit earlier that day. So far I hadn't sunk back into my bottomless pit of Netflix and despair yet. And I was determined to stay out of it for as long as I could.

There was only one thing that was still bothering me. I'm pretty sure that you already know what it was at this point.

I stared blankly at the waiting page in front of me. I knew what I wanted to say. I just had no idea how I could put it down into words.

I was tired of keeping everything held back and pent up inside of me for as long as I had. The pressure was starting to build up so much that my head was threatening to explode. I'd already started to splinter under the strain. I'd accidentally let the truth slip on Saturday. It wasn't as if she hadn't known in the first place, though. My resolve was probably nowhere near as strong as I thought it was.

I tapped the end of my pencil against the paper, the stick of graphite sliding back and forth at the tip. I was trying so hard to find a better way to put it. But there was really only so much to it. Yeah, it was simplified. Simplified to the point that it sounded stupid. But it was all I could think. I stabbed my pencil against the page and started to write.

I like him.

The words spilled out onto the paper, far beyond my control.

I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I like him. I li-

My phone lit up on my dresser.

I glanced over at it. I'd left it plugged in to charge and turned the volume down to silent for the night. That didn't stop messages from coming in, though. I dropped my pencil onto the open pages of my notebook, dragged myself out of my position and staggered over to my phone to see who the hell was sending me a message at gone ten o'clock at night. It might have been my dad. Maybe he was finally telling Mikasa and I where the hell he was and why he wasn't home yet at this time of night. I picked up the phone and unlocked the screen again. The sender and message flashed across the screen.

It wasn't from my dad. An unknown number was displayed in the middle of my lock screen. Underneath that was a single sentence. I tapped on the message, and the lock screen turned into the clean white background of my inbox. The text message popped up as a little gray bubble on the left side of the screen.

201-?-?: Are you okay?

I stared at my phone for so long that the screen went dark. I unlocked it again only to stare at the message some more. I racked my brain, searching for somewhere, anywhere that I might have seen that number before. It wasn't blocked or classified or anything. But I still had no idea who it was. Or why they wanted to know whether I was okay or not.

I sighed to myself. It didn't matter. Probably just a wrong number.

I tapped on the little trash can icon in the corner of the screen. And just like that, the message was gone.

I was taking notes in the kitchen when it happened again, less than twelve hours later.

Ping! Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzz.

I looked up from my history textbook and over at the counter. My phone was glowing and vibrating madly against the granite, slowly humming its way toward the edge. I shot up from my place at the table and rescued it before it fell over onto the floor. I looked at the lit up screen. It was around nine in the morning. I wondered who would have the time to send me a text at a time that most people were in class or at work or-

My thoughts hit a wall as soon as I saw the screen.

New message from: 201-?-?

Are you okay?

I stared at my screen and forced myself to take a breath.

This again?

I unlocked the screen, opened the message thread in my inbox and poked the little trash can. I selected yes, I did want to delete (1) message. Then I locked my phone again, put it down on the counter and went back to my notes on the table. Whoever had sent me that message, I was sure they would get the point eventually. How many times can someone send a message without a reply before they get tired and give up? If it were me, not many. So I quickly refocused myself on my textbook and forgot any of it had ever happened.

And, oddly enough, it happened again a few hours later.

I was scrolling through Tumblr, trying to unwind after spending almost the entire day on my homeschooling. My phone lit up, and sure enough it was the same thing. Some unknown number asking if I was okay. This time, I knew exactly what to do. Trash can, yes, delete. Then I went back to my laptop and ignored my phone for the rest of the day.

Until I got another text after I came out of the shower that night.

I had just picked up my phone to check what time it was. But there it was again. That same message notification that I had already seen way too many times that day.

New Message from: 201-?-?

Are you okay?

I deleted that message.

And the one I woke up to the next morning.

And the one I received in the afternoon.

And the one I got after dinner.

And the one that came in at almost nine.

And the other one that came in slightly after nine.

And the one that was on my phone when I woke up late the day afterwards.

Clearly, the messages were starting to weird me out.

Still, I never responded. If a stranger wanted to text me over and over again waiting for a response, fine. They wouldn't be getting one. Of course, the nice thing to do probably would have been to text back and let them know that they had the wrong number. The messages didn't sound like drunk texts or anything similar. If someone wanted to say something to their ex-girlfriend after three bottles of Jack, I'm pretty sure "Are you okay" wouldn't be it. And for all I knew, there could have actually been something serious going on that the texts didn't tell me about. But, as we all know very well, I am not a nice person. So I just let them keep texting. And texting. And texting.

It wasn't until the three days later, after eleven texts, that things changed.

It was dark. It had been for a while, but my dad still wasn't home yet. I'd had a long day, since Mikasa had taken me out to the mall for a while, and I was feeling pretty exhausted. So I had decided to turn in early. It was a little funny, how easy my cancer made it for me to overexert myself. All I'd done was walk around for a little while, but I felt like I'd run clear across three states. I fully expected to pass out the second my head hit the pillow.

And that was just what I was on my way to doing when my phone rang.

I forced myself to sit upright and glanced over at my dresser. The lilting, digitized melody that I used as my ringtone sounded off in my dark, once-quiet room. My phone was vibrating on my dresser, lit up with bluish artificial light. I sighed heavily and struggled to get out from under the covers, then stretched out from the edge of the bed to snatch my phone from the dresser. I looked at the caller ID, and a breathy, exasperated sigh rushed out of my lungs.

Incoming call: 201-?-?

As if the endless torrent of text messages hadn't been enough.

I guessed it was finally time to face whoever had been at the other end of all those texts I had left deleted and unanswered. I tapped the green answer button and pressed the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" I said.

"Eren?" an unfamiliar voice replied on the other end.

I blinked, but didn't do much more to react. "How do you know my name?" I asked absently. "How did you get this number?"

"What do you mean, how did I get this number?" the stranger shot back. "Cell phone numbers are part of the necessary information for registration. I thought even you would have known that much, brat."

A tiny spark lit up in my chest like a dead wire suddenly coming back to life.

"Levi?"

A sharp, humorless laugh sounded on the other end. "Who else would it be?"

For a second, everything stopped. It was as if the entire world around me had stilled in its orbit, and now my whole life was moving in slow motion.

His voice. I hadn't heard it in so long.

"You were the one sending me all those texts?"

"Yeah," he answered. "Hanji told me to."

"Sh-she did?"

"After Armin asked. But Hanji's sort of got her hands full with everyone else in the group, so... just this once she wanted me to take care of it for her."

"Why was Armin asking her to contact me?"

"I don't know. Maybe you should ask him yourself. Since, you know, you haven't spoken to him in almost two weeks."

Levi's words hit me like a brick wall. "That's how long it's been?"

"Yeah. You stuck in a time loop or something, brat?"

"No, I just... how many meetings have I missed?"

"Three," Levi replied. "You weren't missing much, though. Everything's been kinda dead at the last few..." He trailed off, and the line was silent for a while. "I'm sorry," he started over. "That was a really shit choice of words."

"No, it's fine," I said calmly. "I mean, we all know what happened to her. It's not like it's news to me or anything."

"I know it isn't," Levi said. "But you left after you found out, so everyone thought that maybe..."

"It wasn't," I said, picking up where he left off as quickly as I could. "It wasn't... because of her."

"Oh," he murmured. "Okay. Then... would you feel comfortable telling me what the reason actually was?"

"No." The answer had already shot out before I realized that I'd said anything. By the time I did, Levi was already responding.

"No? Why not?"

"I...It's just..." I stuttered, scrabbling for an excuse. "It's kind of personal."

"Brat, this is a support group. Personal is what we do."

I sighed. I should have been expecting that. Just as coldly fucking logical as ever, Levi. "I know, but... it's a different kind of personal. Not the support group kind."

"There's a support group kind of personal?"

"Look, I just... I don't want to talk about it."

"Alright. Then we won't," Levi said finally. I wanted to collapse under the wave of relief that washed over me.

But a second later...

"You are okay though, right?"

I paused, stuck in a blank space in between one snatch of conversation and the next. I didn't know what to say next. Even though it was a simple question. So mind-numbingly simple, with only two answers. But for some strange reason I couldn't pick one.

"Eren?" Levi's voice was so soft. I got the impression that maybe, out there on the other end of the line, he was in the same place as I was. Lying in bed, leaning back on the pillows, his phone balanced on his ear and waiting for a response. Waiting for me.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I'm okay." It might not have been exactly the truth, but it was close enough.

"Okay," Levi replied.

The line was quiet for a while. "Okay," I said again, just to break the silence.

"Okay." Levi's voice sounded like an echo of mine. My face began to twitch itself into a smile.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

A soft laugh broke into the pattern. "Alright, we need to stop. Okay is going to become the new Always at this rate."

I couldn't stop myself from laughing as well. "Oh, god. Wouldn't that be a tragedy."

"Yeah. Then Bert and Reiner are going to sue us for copyright infringement."

I laughed again. "Copyrighting a word. That's got to be a new low for society."

"So... copyrights aside..." Levi began. My breath stuck in my throat as I waited for him to continue. "You planning on coming back to the support group anytime soon?"

For the second time that night, my answer came out before I was even aware that I'd said anything.

"No."

"No?" Levi repeated the word, his voice sounding muted and confused. I bit my lip, immediately wishing I could take it back. But it was already out by then. "Why not?"

"I... I don't..." I was groping blindly around in my brain for a reason. But it seemed like one didn't exist. At least not one that I could give him. "I don't know."

"If you don't know why, how come you sounded so sure when you said no?"

I tried to find him an answer. I really did. The only problem is that one didn't exist.

"Oi. You still there, brat?"

I started at the sudden sound of his voice in my ear. "Y-yeah. I'm still here."

"So are you coming back or not? Because if you really don't want to, then at least give us a resignation notice or something. You can't just walk out and never come back. If you want to drop out, then-"

"I don't want to drop out," I said, my voice snapping unexpectedly. "I mean... i-it's not that I want to, I just..."

"You just what?"

His voice was so soft. I'd only ever heard it like that once before. Well, twice, actually. But the second time might have been because of the alcohol-induced pounding in my head that was torturing me at the time. It still felt like the end of a feather slowly being traced along my spine, strange and shiver-inducing but at the same time soft, comforting, all things that Levi rarely ever was. Well, not in front of anyone else. But I'd seen that side of him before.

"Nothing," I said finally. "Look, Levi, I... I don't know what's been wrong with me lately. I'm just... I'm so out of it. I couldn't go to the meetings... or anywhere, really. Not until everything got sorted out."

"And is it sorted out now?"

I stayed quiet for a while longer. "Not really."

"Do you need to talk about it?"

Alright. That was something that I never thought I would hear come from him.

"With you?"

"Um, do you hear anyone else on my end of this conversation, brat?"

I stifled the light, whispery laugh that bubbled up out of my chest. "No."

"So do you or don't you want to talk?"

"Um..." I murmured, twisting the edge of my sheets up in my fingers. "No. Well... not right now. It's... it's kind of late, isn't it?"

"I don't care. It's not like I've never pulled an all-nighter before," Levi said indifferently.

"Oh," I breathed. I wasn't sure if it was even loud enough for him to hear over the phone. I didn't know you would do that for me, Levi.

"I, um... Actually, I've had kind of a long day. And I really am tired. So... maybe some other time?"

"Some other time?" Levi said back to me.

"Yeah," I replied. "If... if that's okay with you, I mean."

"Alright," he said. "Some other time it is, then."

"Okay," I said softly. I took a breath and rested my head back against a pillow. "Talk to you later, Levi."

"Talk to you later, brat," Levi said. I heard a muffled click on the other end, and the line cut out and went silent.

I pulled my phone away from my face and looked at the screen. The call ended notification flashed for just a second before the display went back to my wallpaper. I locked my phone and stretched my arm out to drop it back on my dresser. Then I rolled onto my back again, nuzzling my head into the pillows and taking a series of slow, deep breaths.

I could not believe what I had just done.

I had sworn to myself that I would never go back to the Youth Cancer Support Group. Not after what my first attempt had done to me. I knew then that the group would be nothing but trouble. It was unnecessary, and I could manage just fine fighting my cancer on my own. And then...

It was too easy. He hadn't even been trying. All it took was a few words, just a touch of mind gaming and I'd unraveled. And he'd done it over the phone. He hadn't even had to do it in person. If he had, I'm pretty sure I would have melted into a puddle of shame right in front of him. I was like a bit of leukemic yarn wrapped around his dexterous fingers. And now he'd cat's-cradled me into doing what I had sworn nearly two weeks earlier I would never do again.

Levi had just dragged me back into the Youth Cancer Support Group.

I sat up one last time to turn off my bedside lamp. I flicked the switch and the room went dark. A weak little strip of moonlight seeped in around one of my shades, bathing the room in a soft, barely-there white glow. I scrabbled around in the semi-darkness, trying to find my way under my covers while my eyes adjusted. Eventually I found the edge and peeled them back, snuggling myself underneath and burying myself as deeply as I could. I sighed one last time and let my eyes fall shut.

I'd had enough of the world for one day.

I'd told Levi that I would talk to him some other time. The problem was that I didn't know when some other time would be.

I probably could have worked it out with him over the phone. Well, I would have if I had been thinking straight at the time. But I wasn't. Also, I may or may not have been trying to end the conversation as soon as I possibly could. I've never been a huge fan of talking about my feelings. Even the whole shebang with Mikasa was sort of forced on me. And, as surprising as it may be, I never took Levi for the kind of person who was into having feelings jams with whiny cancer teens. Or feelings jams in general. Hell, I would have been surprised to find out that the guy even had feelings in the first place.

Some other time probably would not be at the next YCSG meeting. And that wasn't just because I had sworn on my life that I would never go to another one again. Levi had already loopholed me out of that promise. The real problem was that I hadn't been to one in weeks. A new month had started. The rest of the group had worked out a new schedule, and I had no idea what it was. So unless Levi was planning on mailing me a copy, I didn't think that I would be able to attend again.

I probably could have asked Armin, if I had really wanted to know. But then again, that was sort of out of the question. You know, since I had sort of been avoiding him at all costs for the past two weeks. And it sucked. Every second of it. The guilt weighed me down almost as much as my liver tumor had. I'd been such a dick to him. But I couldn't bring myself to apologize. I knew he didn't deserve to be treated that way. He'd never asked for it. But then again, I'd never asked to have leukemia. So I figured it evened out, in some large-scale, cosmic way.

I could have called Levi back to ask him when some other time was supposed to be. He was the busy one out of the two of us, after all. Whatever obligations he had, my life was more than empty enough to work around them. But I never did, possibly for the same reason that I hadn't worked it out with him when he had first called me.

That was probably why I didn't expect some other time to suddenly arrive two days later.

I was in the basement, doing something other than being antisocial for once. And that usually meant I was playing video games with Mikasa. And that usually meant Super Smash Brothers, since it had the best multiplayer mode.

That didn't mean that I was any better at playing it, though.

"GAME!" the automated announcer voice cried out.

"God dammit!" I screamed back as I dropped my controller on the carpet. Mikasa dropped hers as well while she fell over laughing. The final stats screen came up.

"The winner is... Samus!"

Mikasa laughed even harder when I slumped over and slapped my hands to my forehead. "I don't even know why I keep playing this game with you," I grumbled into my palms. "You always beat me."

"Well maybe you should start building up your skills instead of being on Netflix all the time," she said, laughter still lingering in her voice as she pressed start and returned us to the character screen.

"I do," I protested. I deselected Snake and hovered around the display of characters, trying to find one who would be at least slightly less shit than the one I'd just used. "You can play against a CPU, you know."

"I know. How high do you set the difficulty, though?"

I didn't answer. We both knew that I would usually take a self esteem boost wherever I could get one.

"If I play as Ness, do you think you'll do any better?"

I shrugged. "You would probably still kick my ass even if you were some fat little kid with a stupid hat."

"I guess it's worth a try," Mikasa confirmed.

"Ness," the announcer declared as she made her selection.

I was still hovering over the characters when the doorbell rang.

The both of us turned around and looked up towards the top of the stairs at the same time. I glanced back at Mikasa. "You gonna go see who it is?" I asked.

"I don't know," she replied impartially. "Why don't you go?"

I cocked my head and gave her a look, trying to convey Seriously? as hard as I could. "Because I never invited anyone over," I said. "And I'm not the one who people come over to visit. It's not for me. It's probably for you."

Mikasa didn't make a single move to get up. "Not this time."

I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but a millisecond later she wasn't paying attention to me anymore. So, begrudgingly, I staggered to my feet and headed upstairs.

I pulled the front door open and felt my insides turn into slush the second I saw who was standing there.

"Hey, brat," Levi said. And I knew that was the warmest greeting I was ever going to get from him.

"Levi," I murmured numbly, as if I couldn't believe he was standing there. On my doorstep. In person. Not in a text or over the phone. Right there in front of me.

Okay, I didn't just sound like I couldn't believe it. I actually couldn't.

"What are you doing here?"

"You said you still wanted to talk," he reminded me. "So I'm here to talk."

The memory of the call a few nights earlier came back to me. I nodded slowly, peering over his shoulder at the driveway. His bright green Soul was parked close to the edge of the pavement. There didn't seem to be anyone else sitting in it. Other than that, the driveway was empty. "You didn't send Hanji or anything?"

"She told me to take this one for her. Remember?"

"Oh. Yeah," I mumbled, my eyes drawing back to him. "I thought you just meant the call."

"No. Special cases sometimes require a one-on-one session, if they're bad enough. Hanji's normally the one who takes care of those. I've never done one before, but you already know how to deal with me, so..." He trailed off and shrugged.

"You didn't just ask her to do it?"

"Of course not," Levi scoffed. "What kind of callous bastard do you think I am?"

I didn't answer him. I stepped back from the door, pulling it open to make more space for him. "Well... you gonna come in?"

"Don't mind if I do. It's cold as shit out here."

Levi unzipped his sweatshirt and hung it up on the hooks by the door, then kicked his sneakers off and left them directly underneath, just as he had the last time I'd offered to host a beyond-the-hospital YCSG gathering. Which felt like an eternity ago. The house had gone weirdly quiet since I had left the basement. It took me a second to figure out why. There were no longer Super Smash noises coming from the basement. Mikasa must have turned the game off, though I couldn't even begin to guess why.

"So..." I prompted, drawing out the o until I ran out of air and had to stop.

"So... what?" Levi replied.

"Did you tell anyone you were coming over here, or..."

"I know you're not normally the best person at planning, so I went ahead and worked stuff out with Mikasa."

My eyebrows shot up so fast they were pretty much defying gravity. "You planned this with Mikasa?"

"Yeah. You know, since she actually knew my phone number and had bothered adding me to her contacts when she signed up for the group," he said flatly. "And wouldn't ignore me for three days straight."

I felt heat rising up in my chest and silently begged that it wouldn't make it to my face. The truth was, I had been ignoring him a lot longer than that. But it didn't mean he had any right to remind me. I dropped my gaze to the floor. His eyes felt like blue-grey lasers burning holes into my skin. "Look, I- I'm sorry about that. I was-"

"Don't apologize to me, brat. I don't really care about any of that shit."

I looked back up at him, my eyes blinking themselves wider. "You don't?"

"Nah," Levi said with another shrug. "I mean, why should I get pissed off at people for something I do all the time? It's stupid."

The burning in my chest started to calm down. "I guess it is," I admitted. His words reverberated in my head for a second. A tiny realization flickered in the back of my mind, and suddenly What do you mean, something you do all the time? What are you talking about? When have you ever-

Mikasa emerged from the basement and leaned out into the front hallway. She looked over in our direction and her face went rigid the second she registered Levi with her fuming charcoal eyes. "Oh. It was you," she deadpanned as if she hadn't known already.

"It was me." Levi mimicked her on point. "Just like we discussed. Remember?"

"Yeah. I do," my sister affirmed rather unenthusiastically.

"Mikasa?" I cut in before they could start plotting each other's gory murders.

She flicked her eyes away from the LPN and toward me, suddenly brighter and much less angry than they had been when they were on Levi. "Yeah?"

"Um... are you sure this is going to be okay? With, you know... dad and everything?"

"It's fine," she replied quickly. "Don't worry about it." She sounded surprisingly indifferent about inviting people over behind our dad's back. I couldn't help being a little startled by it. She'd never been this lax before.

"Are you sure-"

"Yeah. Totally." She glanced coldly at Levi for a second before looking back to me. "I mean, as long as he's out of here before Dad gets home, it should be fine."

I blinked and ran her words through my head a few times over. I must not have been hearing right. Did she seriously just say that? As long as he's out of here before Dad gets home, it should be fine. Yeah, that was definitely what she said.

"Okay," I murmured, giving her a slight nod. I cast my gaze sideways at Levi. He pointed his straight back at me. "So, um... you want to... go down to the basement or something?" I flicked my eyes toward my quietly seething sister, hoping he would get the message. He did.

"Sure," he replied apathetically. "That's where we always end up when we're at your place, anyway."

Bless your perceptive soul, nurseman.

I led the way as we rushed down the stairs, Levi sticking close behind me. Mikasa's footsteps slowly faded above us, probably stalking off into her room or anywhere else in the house where Levi wasn't.

I still had a hard time understanding why she hated him so much.

Once we'd made it down to the landing, Levi directed me over to the couch and told me to lie down. I did as he said and watched as he made his way over to one of the oversized beanbag chairs that were scattered around all over the floor. He dragged it over to the couch and settled into it right next to the end where I'd decided to rest my head.

"The only thing that would make this shit any more authentic would be if you had a giant leather armchair," he said.

"Hm?" I murmured. I hadn't really been listening to anything he was saying, if he'd even been saying anything. I was more concerned about the way my heart was malfunctioning over the fact that he was so fucking close to me.

"I said you've got pretty much a perfect therapist's office setup down here," he said.

"We do have a recliner, if you want the armchair thing-"

"Nah. I'd rather hang out over here." Levi glanced over his shoulder at me, a sly spark in his blue gunmetal eyes. "This way I can smack you if you decide to fall asleep on me."

I glared indignantly at the back of his head. "I'm not going to fall asleep."

He just shrugged and took out a notebook that I hadn't even realized he'd brought with him. "Hey. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened."

I cringed as a brief and humiliating flashback of the liver tumor summer flashed through my mind. "Can we please just not talk about that?" I whined.

"Why? Is that a problem for you?" Levi asked. He'd flipped his pocket-sized notebook open to a blank page and was tapping a pen against the binding. "Am I going to have to start putting trigger warnings on my words or something now?"

"N-no," I quickly stammered out. The memory of the first disastrous party at Jean's in July appeared out of nowhere and joined all the other times that I'd fallen asleep around Levi, turning my head into one big humiliating party. I felt my face flush and silently cursed Levi for his supernatural ability to embarrass me. Or maybe it wasn't embarrassment that was making me blush at all. Either way, I was trying as hard as I could to look like I wasn't on the verge of turning into a strawberry.

"Alright. Good to know, because if that was the case, I would probably have to warn you at least every other time I opened my mouth."

I rolled my eyes and a slip of laughter escaped me. "Yeah. You're more blunt than a pair of safety scissors."

"Hey. Watch it, brat," Levi snapped, glancing sharply back at me. "I'm trying to be nice here."

"I know. That must be a pretty difficult thing for you, isn't it?"

Levi's eyes flashed, and suddenly I knew. Past that expressionless face, past the eyes that always seemed half-focused and unamused, my words had hit something. They were digging into him like needles into his veins, even though I never intended for them to delve that deep. I'd thought Levi would just ignore me and let them roll off. But this wasn't just another support group meeting. It was just us. Here. He knew that he didn't have anyone to impress.

"I said watch it," he commanded. Then he turned his back to me again. I felt a pang of guilt explode in my ribcage like a bursting bubble filled with broken glass. Why had I said that? What the hell was I thinking? He had come all this way for me. And here I was, still being a belligerent idiot. Still pushing him away. Still trying to get him out of my life, even though for once he had come back to me all on his own.

My next words were out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying.

"I'm sorry."

"About what?" Levi asked flatly.

I tried to answer. Then, all of a sudden, I couldn't. My lips had gone numb and my tongue felt heavy and useless in my mouth. I had no idea what to say next. There were at least a thousand places that I could have started, mostly because I'd been telling the truth. I really was sorry. The only problem was that I was sorry about so many things, I was clueless as to which one I would tell him about first. That is, if I was willing to tell him about any at all.

"Eren."

I swallowed convulsively and stared blankly up at the ceiling. "Mhm?"

"What are you sorry about?" he asked again.

I strained my eyes to the side and glanced down at him. He still had that little notebook, was still tapping the end of his pen against the waiting pages. Whatever I said would be going down in that notebook. And if he happened to be sharing that with anyone else, even one singular person in the support group, they would know. They would know about everything.

"I-" I choked, trying to start but struggling to speak over the dry constriction in my throat.

"You were lying when you said you were okay over the phone, weren't you?"

Levi's words hit me like lightning. "W-what? No, I... I wasn't! I mean, I wasn't then... I was okay then. When we talked."

"And you're not okay now?"

"I-I don't know. I think I'm okay, but... there's just so much going on. It's kind of hard to explain."

Levi turned back around and fixed his eyes onto mine. The sharp, razored edge they always had seemed to have melted. They made my heart do exactly the same thing.

"Then try," he said firmly.

"I know I should, at the very least, but-"

"But nothing," Levi cut in. "Brat, I don't care how complicated your shit is or how long it takes you to get it out of your system. You are not getting up from that couch until we've gotten this worked out. Okay?"

I nodded weakly. "Okay."

Levi kept his eyes on mine for a second, and that one second seemed to stretch on for an eternity. By the time he turned back to his notebook, my chest had seized up and every single nerve in my body was on edge. It was too late to back out now. I would have to tell him. Maybe not everything, but I would have to at least tell him something. I wouldn't be able to lie to Levi's face. He knew me far too well for anything like that.

"So," he began, "since you're stuck with all the things you're apparently sorry for, I'll go ahead and get things started. First, there's one thing I want to know."

"Which is?" I asked.

"Why did you leave the support group?"

The question wasn't any easier to answer than the last one. There were just as many reasons for that one as things I had to be sorry for, if not more. Some of them had even managed to conform to both categories. "I... It was starting to get weird."

"Weird how?"

"Like... It wasn't the way it was when I had first joined. Like it had changed over the summer. And then, when the whole thing with the unofficial meetings started, and we didn't have the conference room anymore, it was just..."

"Too informal for you, brat?" Levi cut in.

"No. No, that wasn't it," I quickly tossed back. "It was..."

It felt too much like we were friends. Like we were there because we all wanted to be.

"It was different."

"And I'm guessing that it would be even more different without Ymir there."

I rolled over and stared at the back of his raven head. "I already told you that this has nothing to do with her."

"Are you sure about that?"

And, just like that, Levi no longer even had to be looking at me to see straight through me.

When she died, it reminded me, I thought desperately. It reminded me that I was headed on the same path. That I still am. I couldn't stay anymore when I knew that at any point, I could relapse and end up in the same place as her. I couldn't do that to the group.

To my friends.

To you, Levi.

"No. I'm not sure. I'm not sure at all."

"You don't cope with change very well, do you?"

"Depends on what kind of change it is."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well... think of it like this," I explained. "There are changes that are good, ones that are bad, and ones that just make things different. Like, if my house burned down and I had to move. That's a bad change. Switching hospitals or getting my medication changed I wouldn't care much about. And if one day I woke up and my cancer was gone, I would be fucking ecstatic."

Levi nodded in agreement. "So, the informal meetings were a bad change?"

"No, it... well, actually, it sort of was. But... not really, either?"

Levi twisted around and fixed me with a piercing look. "You really can't get your thoughts in order, can you, brat?"

I stared at him for a second, sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. "No. I can't. At all."

"I'm gonna have a hard time helping you out if you won't tell me what's wrong."

I looked away and stared at the ceiling, embarrassed. "I know."

The rest of the session went on in pretty much the same way. Levi asked questions, I rambled for a while, and then we would both arrive at the conclusion that neither of us had any fucking clue what my problem was. It wasn't unproductive enough for us to stop, though. We just kept sitting there and talking, hoping that if we went on long enough eventually we would reach some kind of resolution. But, even after an hour and a half of amateur therapy, it never happened. My problems were still ambiguous as ever.

It was a good thing that was the way I wanted them to stay. Ambiguous.

Even though we accomplished an astounding amount of nothing over the entire course of the session, I was still starting to feel better. Not weighed down. Not like the cancer cells in my bones were made out of lead anymore.

"Hey, brat, what time does your dad normally get home from work?" Levi asked.

"Um..." I strained to sit up from the couch cushions, looking around the room for a clock of some sort. My eyes landed on the dvd player. The neon blue display read just after five. "I don't know. Late?"

"How late?"

"It changes sometimes. But late."

Levi turned around in the beanbag chair and sat back on his heels. He leaned his elbows onto the couch cushion and folded his arms next to my head. "Is that something you want to talk about?"

"No," I responded a little too quickly. "It's not really a problem or anything. It's sort of just a thing that goes on around here. His hours at work are kind of crazy and he's not home most of the time. Not much else to it."

Levi looked observantly at me for a second, as if he were waiting for something else to come out. Nothing did, so he kept the conversation going. "So... anything else you think you need to talk over?"

Yes. Yes, are were so many things. Just not things I can tell you.

"I don't think so."

"Even though we went over..." Paper shuffled next to my ear as he flipped through the blank pages of his notebook. "...basically nothing?"

I pushed myself upright and leaned over him to look at the tiny page. There was a single word scribbled in black ink, running over the faint blue lines that were supposed to be keeping it straight. Change.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"I wrote it down at the beginning of the session because I thought we were onto something. But we weren't." He flipped the cover of the notebook shut.

"You have nice handwriting," I offered.

Levi let out a low, quiet laugh. "Thanks. Good to know Erwin's shitty-handwriting disease hasn't spread to me yet."

A smile tugged at my lips. "What is it with doctors and handwriting?"

"Don't know," he said with a shrug. "I just know that it apparently doesn't apply to nurses." He stuck the notebook back in his pocket. "Hopefully I can someday be the one doctor on the planet who has legible handwriting."

"You?" I asked.

"Yeah," Levi said, sounding kind of annoyed. "What the hell do you think I'm in a pre-med program for?"

"Well, I thought..." I stammered. "I mean, you're already a nurse, so it would make sense that you-"

"Being an LPN is just my day job, brat," Levi cut in. "It's not something I want to be stuck doing for the rest of my life. I needed a way to pay my way through college, and becoming a hooker didn't seem all that appealing."

Another short laugh slipped out of me. "But why a nurse? Why not something else?"

"The pay isn't bad and the training was cheap and relatively short," he answered matter-of-factly. "It'll also give me experience working in a hospital without making my absence from the floor anything life-threatening. I only work summers and weekends, then I'm at school pretty much the rest of the year."

"Oh," I said. Things were quiet in the basement for a while longer. "So... what kind of doctor do you want to be?"

"Oncologist," he answered.

"Really?" I smiled. "Is Erwin really that good of an influence? You're following in your supervisor's footsteps?"

"No."

I waited for Levi to say something more, but he never did. His face had hardened up again, and the steely sharpness was back in his eyes. I'd hit something. I knew I had. There was more to that answer than he was letting on. But I was scared to try and dig any deeper. Something in me knew that Levi wouldn't have wanted me to. I hadn't let him in on any of my secrets. It only made sense to let him do the same thing to me.

I inhaled sharply and tried to find something else to say. "Is the session over now?"

"I'm pretty sure it's been over for a while, brat," Levi replied.

"Well, now what?"

"I don't know. I guess I should get going. You know, since your dad is going to be coming home whenever late is." His fingers scraped out air quotes around the word.

"Wait. Don't go," I said.

Then I shut my mouth and thought as hard as I could about what the fuck I just said.

Levi was staring at me, the notebook's cover flipping shut in his hand of its own accord. I stared impulsively back. The entire world had started to lag around me, and the same thought blasted through my head over and over again.

What the fuck did I just say?

What the FUCK did I just say?

"Why not?" Levi asked, speaking slowly as if I had brain damage.

"N-never mind. You can go, if you need to. You're, um... probably busy, I guess," I sputtered desperately, trying to override the embarrassingly Nicholas-Sparks-esque phrase of absolute yearning that had just come out of my mouth. How the hell did that come out? Why did I say that? What the hell am I doing?

"You sure you want me to, brat?" Levi's voice was still mocking me, but there was a little more honesty in it than I was used to hearing from him.

"Yeah," I blurted out in response. "Yeah, it's fine. I mean, if you've got things to do-"

"As stupid as it might sound, I would rather hang out here and talk about your issues than be writing a five-page paper about alterations in meiosis."

I couldn't help the subtle laugh that slipped out of me. "Seriously?"

"Do you want to sit in front of a screen and type until your fingers snap in half?"

"It still sounds like you've got better things to do."

"Better is kind of a relative term."

I laughed again, and the basement was quiet for a while. Just to break the silence, I shyly asked, "So, do you still want to go, or..."

"Not really, but I probably should," Levi replied. He stood up from the beanbag, locked his arms behind him and stretched his shoulders back. I heard his spine pop a few times before he relaxed again. "Jesus, my shoulders are going to be made of tire rubber before the semester's out."

"Maybe you should ask Mikasa to fix them for you sometimes. She's done it for me before. I'm pretty sure she could punch all the knots out."

"And I'm pretty sure that's not all she would want to punch out."

I swung my legs over the side of the couch and stood up next to him, taking note of the gentle angle that I had to tilt my head at in order to look him in the eyes. "I'll show you to the door then, I guess-"

"I've been over here before. It's not like your house is a fucking labyrinth." With that, Levi started for the stairs, leaving me to follow him. And, thanks to my semi-useless twig legs, I made it to the front hallway just as he was putting his shoes on.

"I'll email you a copy of the new schedule once I get back to my place," Levi said as he shrugged his heavy sweatshirt back on. "We've got another five meetings scheduled for this month, and if you're planning on showing up to any of them, you're going to need it."

"Thanks," I took a step toward the door and pulled it open for him. "I'll see you again soon, then?" I asked when he was halfway through.

Levi turned back for a second, and my heart skipped at the look in his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you will. Later, brat."

"Later," I said. Then he left the doorstep and disappeared into his car. I pulled the door shut, silently hating myself for the new soul-wrecking promise that I had just made.

"How'd it go with Levi?"

I glanced over at Mikasa from the pan of frozen veggies. "The session?"

"No, the makeover," Mikasa snipped sarcastically. "Of course I mean the session. What else have you done in the past... what has it been, two weeks?"

"Verging on that," I replied. I poked at the contents of the frying pan, which still looked too frosty for human consumption. "It was okay, I guess."

"Did you get your malfunctions fixed?"

"Probably not, but I think it made things a little better."

"Did you at least tell him about what was bothering you?"

"No, and I wasn't planning on telling anyone. You kind of forced me into it."

"Did you confess your love for him and make out in the basement?"

I let my head loll back and glared over at her. "For fuck's sake, Mikasa."

"Just a suggestion. Pretty sure that would have fixed a lot of things." My sister dropped a bag of rice into a pot of boiling water on the stove. "How are the veggies looking?"

"Fine. Still frozen," I said, poking lamely at the mentioned vegetables. "And I don't love him," I added as an afterthought.

"I never said you did. It's just a general term. What should I have said, confessed your like?"

"Whatever. It's just... don't call it something that it isn't, okay? It's just a stupid crush. Love is completely different. And I'm pretty sure that whatever chemical imbalance is screwing with my head, love is definitely not it."

"Fine. Then I'll stop calling it that." Mikasa leaned over me and peered down at the pan I was supposed to be watching. "You're supposed to stir them more than that, Eren. They're going to burn on one side. That's why they all still look frozen."

"Alright, alright, I've got it," I said, agreeing listlessly with her. I flipped them over for a little while, then Mikasa broke my concentration all over again.

"Why do you like him so much anyway?"

"We've been through this already," I tossed back, trying to focus on not burning my hands as I took the now-cooked bag of rice out of its pot. I dumped it out into a serving dish, right on top of the veggies and a copious amount of soy sauce.

"I know. I just don't get it," Mikasa said. She roughly whisked diced bits of chicken around in the pan that the veggies had recently vacated.

"I don't either. It just happened, I had no control over it, and now I'm trying to make it stop."

"But how can you stop it if you don't know what caused it in the first place?" Mikasa asked.

I stared at her, racking my brain for an answer that wouldn't come until the chicken was almost fully cooked.

"I can't," I finally said. The answer sounded more like a question than anything.

Mikasa hummed in agreement as she scraped down the pan and dumped out the chicken into the serving dish along with everything else. "You know, if you ask me, he's really not worth it."

"Why not?" I asked, even though I was fairly sure I already knew the answer.

"Think about it this way, Eren," she said as she relocated the dish from the countertop to the already-set table. "You're losing your shit over this guy. You have dreams about him that make you wake up stiff. You locked yourself in the house for weeks on end to avoid hurting him. He's even gotten you to start scribbling mindlessly in your writing journals about how much you want him."

I tensed up at the mention of the notebook that I was sure she had never seen. "Wait, how did you know about-"

"But," she continued, cutting me off before I could get my answer, "you are almost completely sure that he isn't doing the same for you."

"No, he isn't, because he's a grown-ass man and I've already admitted to you that I was being an immature, hormonally-driven little bitch about all of this. Can you just tell me how the hell you-"

"I agree. He definitely isn't. And knowing him, he probably hasn't done that for anyone in his entire life."

My voice died mid-sentence, and not just because she had cut me off again. I shut my mouth and couldn't say anything more until I had completely rethought my next words.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because that's just the kind of person he is, Eren," Mikasa said, trying to be gentle but insistent at the same time. "You know him. I do too. The guy doesn't even change his facial expression. It's not just you that he wouldn't do this for. I'm not even sure that he's capable of feeling that way about anyone."

"So basically you're just confirming everything that I've told myself since August and reinforcing it ten times over?"

"You've liked him since August?"

I rolled my eyes and shot an aggravated sigh in her direction. "Yes. At least, I figured out I did in August. It was probably going on before then."

"How long?"

"You think I fucking know?"

"No," Mikasa said. She sighed and settled down into the chair across from mine. "I'm just saying that-"

"I know, I know, Levi will never like me the way that I like him. I fucking know that already, and I don't need you to tell me."

"It's not that, Eren. I'm saying that you have no reason to feel the way you do."

The truth in her words hurt the same way that it does when a little kid first hears that Santa Claus isn't real. "What do you mean?"

"He's a jerk," she said flatly. "He's got nothing to offer you, Eren. Even today was a fluke. The only reason he came over was because Hanji couldn't make it. He told you that himself, didn't he?"

I felt deflated and let myself drop weakly into the chair closest to me. "Yeah, he did."

"So do you feel like you can get over him now, or..."

"Yeah, probably," I deadpanned. "I mean, it's not like there was any point to this in the first place. And I've always got you to clear things up if my issues get in the way again."

Mikasa shot me a small smile and took the lid off the serving dish to start loading food onto her plate. "Thanks. It's nice knowing you don't take me completely for granted." She dropped the spoon back into the dish and turned the handle towards me. "What has he ever done for you anyway?"

I froze up for a second and stared across the table at a spot on the wall just over Mikasa's shoulder. I wanted to answer her, but there was nothing I could say that wouldn't give her an advantage and let her to rip me to shreds. I just took the spoon and obediently forced myself to start eating. She would start worrying again if I didn't. Even when the conversation topics turned in all sorts of other directions, her words continued to echo in my head. What has he ever done for you?

More than you will ever know, Mikasa. More than you will ever know.

Dinner was boring, other than that. Dad didn't make it home until long after dark. No one mentioned anything about what had gone on in the basement that afternoon. So it was an average day, as far as he was concerned.

It was past eleven when I was up in my room, scrolling through Tumblr and simply not feeling like going to sleep yet when I remembered Armin.

Armin.

Armin, the first friend that I'd had in years. The awkward, frail book nerd and songwriter who was closer to me than anyone else in the group. The only person who had been brave enough to talk to me when I had made it clear that I wasn't there to make friends. The kid who liked oatmeal cookies and talking to scary mute girls and had next to no cancer left in his body, who had no excuses and never asked for any.

Also, coincidentally, the person who I had cut off two weeks ago without any warning.

I couldn't remember his class schedule at Rose Community. I didn't think he had ever said anything about it, only that he was taking another class in lit analysis, a bit of biology and had finally decided to go into music theory. Pushing the potential conflicts to the back of my mind, I sat up and picked up my phone. It didn't matter what time he had to get up or what he had going on the next day. I had to say something to him.

Me: hey Armin

Me: it's been a long time. so sorry I haven't said anything to you in a while

Me: fuck two weeks is not a while, what is wrong with me

Me: i am really so sorry and if you could please text me back

Me: i don't care when, just sometime, whenever you get around to it. im always available here

Me: pretty sure you know that already lol

I locked my phone and spiked it into the mattress before I said anything else stupid.

I didn't think he was going to answer. It was late, and I had been so unforgivably dickish to him that I wouldn't have been surprised if he had gotten my text and just didn't want to reply. I figured that he would text back the next day, at the earliest. Possibly never. At least until I attended the next YCSG meeting, whenever that happened to be, since I had ever-so-stupidly allowed Levi to drag me back into it.

I was a little surprised when my phone lit up ten minutes later.

Arminnie Mouse: Eren wtf I am trying to sleep

Relief exploded like a volcano in my chest and lava streams of happiness began running all over my internal organs. He had responded. More than two weeks with no contact, and he had still responded.

I didn't know what heaven Armin had fallen from, but he was definitely some kind of angel.

Me: OMG I DID NOT EXPECT YOU TO ANSWER THAT

Me: what's new? what have i been missing?

His responses were a little slow, probably because I had woken him up. But it didn't matter all that much. He was responding, and that was the only thing I cared about.

Arminnie Mouse: Not much. YCSG was depressing af for a while, but things have started to get better. New classes are going good too

Arminnie Mouse: wbu?

Me: Nothing. Literally nothing.

Me: I have barely even left the house in the past 2 weeks or so

Arminnie Mouse: You say that as if its some kind of accomplishment

I stared at my phone and sighed. I should have known I wasn't exactly going to be coming back to a warm welcome.

Me: well my previous record was 2 years so not really

Arminnie Mouse: Eren wtf

Arminnie Mouse: You have issues

Me: I know. thats why im texting you right now

Arminnie Mouse: I'm just happy to know youre still there

Arminnie Mouse: I missed you

Arminnie Mouse: So does everyone else, btw

I felt a pang of guilt when the last message came in. It wasn't just Levi that I had abandoned without warning, or Armin. The entire group considered me their friend at that point (with a few exceptions). If staying away from the YCSG had even still been an option at that point, that message would have convinced me to come back right then and there.

Me: i missed you too

Arminnie Mouse: Eren not to be a turd but can we continue this when it's not 11:30 at night? I have to sleep

Me: yeah sry

Me: Armin?

Arminnie Mouse: ys

Me: can you txt me when u get out of class? i was hoping you could maybe come over

Me: or go to beans with me or something

Me: fuck it im lonely and need help okay?

I had no idea what I was even trying to type anymore. I wanted to see him again. There were so many other things I wanted to tell him as well, but that was all that would come out. I decided to stop spamming him and let him infer whatever he wanted from what I had sent. And, obviously, he once again proved himself to be the best friend in all of existence.

Arminnie Mouse: lol Eren yes i can

Arminnie Mouse: I'll txt you right after class and I can get my grandpa to take me wherever once we work it out

I breathed a sigh of relief and sent him one last message.

Me: thank you so much armin. i'll talk to u tomorrow

Me: Goodnight

Arminnie Mouse: Goodnight Eren

I shut down my laptop and left my phone on the dresser. For the first time in days, I finally felt like I had done something right.