Unity

Chapter Six

I was awoken relatively early, for it was still bright out, by the feel of Eren's chin dug right above my collar-bone and his hands tensely wrapped around my wrists. The body behind me was shaking lightly and I turned around to see Eren's eyes tied inflexibly. Though his expression showed bitterness, he showed the smallest hint of sadness and fear in the way he was clutching onto me.

"Eren," as soon as the audio had time to reach his ear, his eyes flashed open and began dilating rapidly. His gasp told me only grief, but he clenched his teeth and stood up, with my toppling off of him, and went to sit by the creek. My chase towards him was slow and quiet, for I didn't want to wake Mikasa.

"Are you okay?" Eren's bare feet bathed in the creek water and his face was now blank.

"Honestly," he paused for a long time until he spoke again. "No-" he cupped both of his hands over his eyes and soon enough, there was water dripping from the bottom of his hands.

"Eren," I placed on of my small hands on Eren's arms and another on his hand to give him a reassuring squeeze. "You can tell me why you're not okay if you want to."

"Okay," Eren shook my hands off, but only to hold one of them with his own. "I dreamed about my mother again." He brought my hand to his lap and looked down on it. I've never seen Eren cry before. The only emotions I've ever seen him have are happy, affectionate, monotonous, and angry. Never before have I seen him sad like this, but Mikasa did say that he used to seem depressed all the time.

"What happened to her?" Eren's green's eye's color got bigger while the golden one dilated. Wow... I didn't even know that was possible... Nevertheless, the tears in both of his eyes got bigger, and all at once, they dropped as well with his jaw.

"Mom... the titans..." his teeth clenched shut and his eyes grew narrow. He took a stance, arched his back, and clamped both of his hands against the wall of the creek. "Titans... I'll exterminate every one," Eren held both of his hands near his chest and looked at them questionably. "No... I'll kill every one!" he was panting harder than I've ever seen anyone before.

"What are the titans?" I tried to be soft so I didn't startle him... especially when he was the most aggravated I've ever seen him be...

"No one ever believes me... They all think I'm crazy when I tell them."

"I'll believe you. I don't think you're crazy at all." Eren stood and faced towards me as his expression became softer, only to tense up again.

"The titans are giant human-like creatures that eat people. They're vicious, but never stop smiling. They're desire to eat humans is real, everything about them is real, I swear! No one fucking believes me, but I know," he paused himself dramatically. "I know they're real."

"Eren-"

"because I watched one eat and slaughter my mom..." he fell to his knees and began trembling everywhere. I switched sides to sit next to him. It wasn't long before he was lying down with his head and part of his back rested on my lap. "Do you think I'm crazy?"

"No, of course not. I think you're more sane than most people to believe what you saw was true, actually. Most people would deny it. That must have been extremely traumatizing. I'm so sorry," Eren covered his face with his hands and cried out again.

"Thank you... Armin..." he got off of my lap and wrapped both of his arms around my shoulders tightly and compacted. "Hey Armin?" he looked straight into my eyes with his face close to mine.

"Yeah?" Eren moved his body closer to mine and put one of his hands on the back of my neck.

"Would it be okay with you if I kissed you?" my cheeks felt hot, but right now I couldn't care less whether Eren noticed or not.