even now I wonder if I knew fact from fiction.
I don't know who I am.
did I ever?
She knew me since the beginning,
before the beginning —
But after everything's over and i am gone,
who is the i she's always known?
Hanji, Levi, Armin, and Mikasa sat on sofas in a lounge, absorbed in discussion. Hanji leafed through papers clipped inside a confidential folder while the others watched, listening to her read the papers out loud. In some cases, Eren's memories rewrote themselves, she explained. Eren's mother gently passed away in the night. Eren's father was missing—still alive. Somewhere.
They pondered human nature and human nurture.
Armin said: "I think we should try to uphold these false memories and, however we can, shelter Eren from the past. For the time being, we can let him lead a normal life."
"What makes you so sure Eren could ever lead a normal life?" Hanji, Armin, and Mikasa turned to Levi, looking at him to listen.
"Sometimes people arrive in this world carrying something monstrous inside themselves," Levi said. "And it's only a matter of time before it bares its fangs again."
# # #
The garden dreamed in a damp shimmer of heat. Soft dirt lay under their feet. Tender plants leapt and twirled and spun out their shining green life and shining green respirations. All through the warm noontime, Mikasa and Eren strolled side by side and admired and felt the flowers and breathed the wild aroma and imagined they were far away. The glass windows bottled up the sun. Dark shadows of sweat soaked their shirts. The small hairs on Mikasa's nape were beginning to curl and glisten. Eren lifted the hair off her damp neck.
"You don't have to join me on my walks every day, you know," Eren said. "The climate's pretty uncomfortable after a while. The humidity's . . ."
"How about the fountain?" Mikasa said.
"The fountain?"
"What do you think about cooling off there?"
Their feet were soft on the black dirt as they ambled to the heart of the garden. Water sang through pipes and flutes, crying clear cool rivers. Mikasa sat on the edge of the fountain and removed her shoes and submerged her feet. Eren rolled up his pant-cuffs and did the same. The water soothed their soles and spread a relief into their calves.
Pure streams of thoughts seeped upward in Eren's mind. They flowed in slow currents. He drifted, carried along. It was a slow and pleasant kind of thinking. Then, all of a sudden, the stream rushed forward, sucking him with it, plunging him down deep cataracts where his memories had been gouged out.
"There are blank spaces in my mind," Eren said. He watched Mikasa's hands dip out handfuls of water, rinsing her legs. "I haven't been able to remember anything about you."
"Don't strain yourself trying to dredge up the past. For things to have turned out this way, it isn't a bad thing. I've enjoyed these daily strolls through the garden."
Eren washed his face. He used his shirt to wipe his eyes.
"Soon the Military Police will allow me to go into town with an escort. They're running low on supplies and need me to pick up a few things."
"You're not their errand boy."
"For now I have to do whatever they ask." Eren turned, the sides of his face still trickling water. "I was wondering, if you're available, instead of going on our walk, would you want to go into town with me to pass the time?"
Mikasa's mouth was fixed shut.
"Are you needed here or something?"
"No," she said.
"You sound unsure," he said.
"I'm probably not needed."
"Who are you, exactly?"
Mikasa tilted her head.
"What I mean is, for example, the others look to Armin for his intellect and keen judgment. They seek his input during military and political discussions. So, his time is occupied by those matters. But what about you?"
"My specialty," Mikasa said, slowing down to find the exact words she needed, "is slaughtering titans."
"I'm a titan, though."
"Your power is necessary to the survival of this island. I'm here to ensure you stay alive."
Something hurtled up in Eren's mind like a jabbing knife. He clapped a hand over his eyes. "Ah." He massaged the throbbing ache. A blue vein ridged his temple.
"Eren?"
"Sometimes I get this pain, like a pressure trying to make itself known." His face relaxed as the torments faded.
"Eren." Mikasa leaned slightly closer, growing suspicious of him. She looked into that depth behind his eyes, as if she were trying to see flashes of his consciousness. "Are you keeping something from me?"
Eren wondered if he was keeping something from Mikasa.. Then he looked down at the fountain and the pool of water below him and saw the strewn image of himself on the surface, knowing it was himself, never recognizing it as himself. "No, there's nothing."
He touched the watery echo with a fingertip. The reflection marbled away, vanishing.
"I'll go with you into town," Mikasa said.
"You will?"
Mikasa nodded.
# # #
HQ had plenty of empty rooms with plenty of empty tables and plenty of windows to let in fresh air. Eren and Armin had chosen one to meet for lunch. Leaning on the edge of a long empty table, Eren waited for Armin, patient as time went by. A coffee pot and a few platters of food had been set and sealed. When Armin showed, Eren opened the window and uncovered the platters. Armin sat at the head of the table while Eren dished him out a couple helpings of ham and rice.
"You look worn thin," Eren said.
Armin gestured at the meal. "Thank you for doing this. Most days I can't seem to fit in a time to eat or I have no appetite. It was easier when humanity only existed inside the walls."
"Is there anything you need me to do?"
"No. You've got your hands full, too."
Eren sat by Armin's right side and put his elbows on the table. "Not really. My days are slow and dull lately."
"What about your memories? Aren't you working your hardest to get them back?" When Eren didn't reply, Armin said: "Don't you want to remember Mikasa?"
"Yeah. But the energy to keep hitting at a brick wall is starting to run out."
A hand was constantly near Eren's head, ready to check every once in a while if he thought, or felt, or imagined, or remembered anything, at any point. Each check was useless. "Besides, Mikasa says it's okay for things to be this way. Each day I lose motivation. It's just easier to let it all go."
"Mikasa only says those things because she's kind."
They sat in silence while Armin ate. Eren touched his head, monitoring his thoughts, thinking about them as they materialized from black spaces.
Eren reached across the table. "Coffee?" Armin thanked him and put a cup under the pitcher for Eren to fill. Armin added milk and sugar. It bloomed up and made the color light and creamy. He stirred it with a spoon.
"Forming attachments doesn't come naturally to Mikasa," Armin said, "and so the number of attachments she was able to develop were few. To avoid being alone, she became dependent on those people closest to her and she fiercely protects them with her life." Armin held his coffee cup with both hands. "After you lost your memories, I'm sure she felt lonely. It weighs on her more than she'll ever admit. For you, it's like being told you lost something you don't remember having. For her, it's like being left behind by someone she's shared a connection with since childhood. Every day, she's waiting to be found again."
# # #
It'd almost been a half hour, but the rain never lightened. It was only coming down harder, drumming the glass ceiling. The greenhouse beams ached and trembled. Outside the garden, a yellow silhouette stood, hazed by the falling rain. Mikasa strode out of the building. She put a shield over her eyes to keep her sight clear. Her feet sucked into the wet grass.
"What are you doing out here, Eren? You'll catch a cold."
Eren had his head up with the sheet of raindrops hitting his face. "It feels good," he said, his eyes closed. He parted his lips. "Have you ever tried tasting the rain?"
"No."
"You should try it."
"What's it taste like?"
"I don't know. It's hard to describe."
Mikasa tilted her head back and closed her eyes and opened her mouth.
The rain made them the only two people in the world.
Then the driving rain was held off Mikasa, but she could still hear it steadily striking the grass. She opened her eyes. Eren's soaked head was bent over her, watching closely for something inside her face. The rain fell around them. Eren's wet hair and face let water onto her cheeks. It was like he was crying on her.
Each small drop was warm. Like tears, too.
"What's it taste like to you?" he said.
"Like — how I imagined the sky might taste. Smoky and sweet . . ."
Eren liked her answer, so he backed away and the rain dropped on Mikasa again. For a long time, they didn't move, their heads craned back, feeling and tasting the rain.
"Tell me about a memory I would've liked to remember at a time like this."
Mikasa traveled from memory to memory. Old memories floated up and hung in front of her. She watched one and told Eren what she could see. "Just outside our hometown, there was this hill you liked to play on. I'm not sure what started it, but one day you took off into a run, starting to race up that hill. Armin and I ran after you. When you got to the top, you turned back to wait for us and for a long time, we played up there together."
Eren visualized the scene, helped along by the rain. His hair was longer while wet. The big white T-shirt he wore was sopping.
Mikasa said, "It's hard to tell which memories are important, and I don't think I could tell you myself which ones are the most important. But for Armin that memory is a reminder about why he wants to live out the life he's been given. He never felt there was a reason for his existence. If it weren't for you, he might've already been swallowed up by his own feelings of worthlessness. Something as simple as racing up a hill to meet you at the top allowed him to accept the selfish desire to continue living . . . if only to feel that small happiness once more."
Eren smiled with his eyes closed. He drank raindrops from his lips.