LEVI

This is it. The cold wind of November blows in my face when I leave the building for the last time. I am done. Done with the Replayer. Done with Eren Jaeger. I'm out of here. After all I've seen in this shithole of a building, after all the experiements led by Hanji in the basement in an attempt to make Titans again, I feel like I need to get as far as possible from this place. There's a lot of snow on the pavement because it's the first snow of the year, but I walk. I don't care if my feet are wet. I don't care if I catch a cold. I'm leaving. I feel like I'll never leave if I don't leave now. I'm freaking amazed Hanji let me take my leave... I won't waste my chance to get out of this. I learned what I wanted to know from the Replayer. I satisfied my curiosity. So, yeah, this is it. I am done. I am leaving this place.

It is the perfect opportunity to put an ultimate end to whatever happened with Eren... because I couldn't reach closure through the last months. I couldn't find a way to get rid of his ghost in the apartment, in my bed, on my skin... in my brain or something like that. No. I think it was my heart. Petra was upset, yeah, but I was more upset than her with the whole situation. She got over it. Me, on the other hand, I was literally mad. Mad at Petra for losing it when it happened. Mad at myself for letting something like this happen... and for being so bad with words. Mad at Eren because he was so emotional and intense; that's how it even happened in the first place. I remember telling myself I wouldn't let him get his way... yet he did. I wanted to end this failure for myself... To move on. Eren was young, too young. He was Mikasa's acquaintance. He wasn't on the same page as me anyway. But no, just no, I couldn't find a fucking way to get rid of him. He was everywhere. I cleaned the apartment so many times, yet I feel like I couldn't erase his presence. Every single thing that was his, I made Mikasa give them to him. And yet, he was still in the apartment. When I was in the library, even though I tried to forget my theories about the real emplacement of the walls by putting everything in a box in the closet... out of my sight, I couldn't stop thinking of all the times he was here too. I thought of him against the door frame. I thought of him sitting somewhere... Sometimes just resting on the floor with a fort of pillows and a blanket; Just reading. I felt like I actually got Eren interested in reading, even though he was only reading small stuff or Manga. It was a start. I got him to read Patrick Sénécal and his books aren't that small, but he got through them in an instant. I guess he liked the dark tone in his books. I guess he liked all the suspense, the mystery and... The horror. Yeah, all the horror.

I'll never know if he's still reading some of his books.

This isn't just about books. This isn't just about the library. It doesn't even stay in the apartment. No. When I finally get away from the cold wind by getting in the car, my eyes linger on the side seat as if they remember how, once upon a time, he was sitting right there. I start the car and I drive through the city covered in snow waiting for the warmth to spread in the car and I find myself looking quickly at each bus stop on my way home; just to get a glimpse of a mess of brown hair covered with snow, a red nose and, finally, eyes shining even more because of all the lights reflecting off the snow... Let's be real, though, I reach the apartment without getting a glimpse of him; like usual.

And the apartment feels empty.

-x-

"I'm going to see Eren later today" She says like it's a secret... but she's telling her dad. Such irony. Her voice is low. It's like she's whispering. She's telling me, just me. She doesn't want Petra to know for some reason and I don't get it, because I doubt Petra would be against it. Not now that she calmed down. She had weeks to calm down after all. It is weird, but it's like Eren is growing on her even though they never knew each other in this life.

There's a pause and I feel like Mikasa wants me to say something. Anything.

"You should see him..." She starts shyly again after a while, but the answer is no. It'll stay no even if it kills me.

-x-

"You must be happy... I did like we talked about; I won't have anything to do with the Replayer or them anymore."

Armin Arlet smiles to that with his cup of coffee against his lips. It's not like any other smile. It's a smile to tell me he knows better. It's a smile to tell me he knows it all. He probably thinks he does. He probably is right too, because he's intelligent and wise. I just don't want to admit it.

"You didn't do it for me. You did it for Eren."

"Yeah... I did it for Eren, just like you did."

For an instant, when his blue eyes meet mine, I'm not sure he knows what I'm talking about. It's the way his eyes open wide. It's the way his mouth opens slightly like he's shocked... or clueless, but he exhales through his nose and it all turns into a smile. An honest one. Probably the most honest one I've ever seen on his face actually.

"To protect Eren, I did it to protect him."

"...from me?" I kind of want to laugh at that, because there's no fucking way I'd harm him. Armin Arlet, with his knowledge of his previous life, should know that much.

"From everyone, so he can live happily."

It makes sense. It really does. And yet, I don't like it. Why can't Eren decide for himself? When did Eren become an innocent person who needs to be protected? I want to protect him, of course, but I never intended on stopping him from making decisions or knowing... did I? I didn't exactly tell him about Hanji and her fucked up stuff, but he didn't need to know that. I mean, maybe I was wrong... but I didn't try to make him pass as a dead fucking person either. I didn't try to keep him away from the one person he cared about in his previous life. I didn't try to keep him away from Armin. I wouldn't. I'd assume he'd want to see Armin again and I wouldn't be against it. It would have been his choice to keep Armin in his new life or not. Not mine. His choice.

And, in the end, who are we to decide what Eren needs to be happy?

"Eren knows best what he needs to do to be happy." I mumble quietly... more to myself than him.

There's a pause and I can only assume he's lost in his own thoughts as well with his eyes staring at the coffee cup between his hands. It's the same cafe. It's always the same one. In this cafe, I learned Eren was dead. In this cafe, Armin gave me false information to keep me away from Eren. In this cafe, I am now seeing Armin for the last time... I think. I will never come back to him about Eren. I am moving on from Eren. I am moving on from all this messed up bullshit. I don't want anything to do with Titans. I am going back to my life before I even got this job... and this is my last question to Armin Arlet before we part ways:

"Was Eren really that unhappy in his last life?"

...because I wasn't.

-x-

I can't even tell for how long I've been on the phone. My ear is burning and I switch sides to put the phone on my other shoulder, against my other ear... but, it doesn't really solve the problem. It's been way too long... I don't mind talking to Mikasa, but it happened twice in one day. First, Petra talked forever. These days, she's obsessed with Mikasa seeing a new friend. She says there's something fishy sometimes when she goes to pick her daughter up... and I keep quiet, because it's not my job to tell her: Hey, remember that kid you yelled at? Remember Eren Jaeger? Well, he is hanging out with your daughter behind your back for some reason I don't even know. No. I should stay away from this. I don't even know what they do.

Hum... Actually, I do.

All this time on the phone, I spent more than half of it hearing about Eren Jaeger. Everything. How Eren wasn't even wearing his snow coat, but he had the hoodie on his head because it was too cold. How Mikasa gave him her scarf, her red scarf. How his running shoes were soaked. How he said he'd be fine. How he was headed to Armin's place. How Connie planned to have them all drunk judging by the text he sent. It made my heart skip a beat and I hated myself for reacting to it, but she also told me about how he asked about me.

This whole conversation makes me tired... and it is actually pretty late when I tell her to go to sleep. It takes nearly fifteen minutes before she gives up trying to get me to talk to him. At least. I'm pretty sure she isn't going to sleep when I tell her goodnight, but I am already in my bed. I'm already ready to just roll into my usual position, on my usual side of the bed and sleep.

It's weird. It's one of those weird nights where you keep dreaming of what you did last before you went to sleep. I think of Mikasa, on the phone and of the conversation. I feel like I didn't sleep, because I kept trying to put an end to the everlasting conversation. So, of course, when the phone rings in the middle of the night, I wake up thinking it's her again and I answer. Yes. I answer a phone call from an unknown number who called nearly twenty times in the last few hours. I just didn't notice. I thought it was in my dream. I was too deep in sleep to notice, maybe.

It's just when I finally open the line and put the phone against my ear that I notice I should probably answer normally with a simple greeting because this probably isn't Mikasa. It's impossible. It was all a dream... except the one real time where we talked. Everything else was a dream and I don't know who's on the other end of the line, but I know. I know the moment the voice breathes my name.

I said I'd never answer his calls again and I removed him from my contacts; Eren Jaeger.

Eren Jaeger is on the other end. His breath is ragged, like he's panicking. I hear his breath against the phone making it very hard to listen to any other sounds behind him. No. Stop it. Stop caring. Don't let him in! Don't. I try to keep my voice steady, like it doesn't bother me at all, like I don't care.

"I told you not to... "

"L-Levi... I... " He interrupts me, but it's not really the reason I let my resolve crumble and listen. It's because of the sound he makes. The hiccups. The broken voice. The sobbing. The fucking tangible panic I can feel getting to me. "There was blood everywhere... I think I broke something. I should be dead!... I think."

And I have no clue what the fuck is going on. I hear sirens in the background, but they sound far away. He speaks of blood and breaking something... and I kind of freak out, because I'm not sure if he meant that he broke something and that something is bleeding because of it. What did he do?

"Calm down, Eren. " I order and I hear him catch his breath to start breathing slowly. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Alright. He's slowly calming down... or so, it seems. "What happened?"

I sigh. I roll in my bed to get into a more comfortable position because this could take a while. I tell myself I'm not cruel enough to hang up when he's in that shape, but we both know it's because I want the best for him. I want to take care of him if he's not doing great... which he definitely isn't, right now... because: "I got hit by a car, Levi!"

"What the... Why are you calling me, you dumbass!? Call 9-1-1!"

But, then, he freaks out again and he screams that he can't. He repeats it again and again... and it doesn't make sense, so I keep calm even though I'm irritated by this and I ask: "Why not?"

I feel like I wait forever for the answer to come out his mouth, but when he does... I just breathe in and I curse quietly, because... Fuck. Oh Fuck! That's definitely a reason to freak out, Ok.

"I... I'm healing."

He's freaking out. He needs help... Fuck. I need help too. What am I going to do with this? What the fuck? How is this even happening? I just stand there staring at my ceiling while he voices the reason of his panic and I just lost my hold over my phone like I lost my hold over reality.

Oh Fuck.