Eren X Levi One Shots ❃ Ereri

Imaginary Friends

A/N Inspired by the play Adult Child/Dead Child

I was told as a child that imaginary friends weren't supposed to last past the age of five so, when I had reached seven, my parents classed me as immature. Sure, it wasn't all that different from before. I was cute, they used to say, with my bushy brown hair and my glowing sea-like eyes but there was always something wrong.

My parents always knew what I felt, they were adults after all. My problem, they never did anything to help that. I would cry- they would sigh. I would punch- they would lock me in the cupboard for the night (the cleaning cupboard on the second floor of my spotless house). I would smile- they would ignore me. I would beg- they would scowl.

Never once were they abusive parents. No, it never went that far. They just never cared. Never once did I see them take care in what I did. Except, maybe, on the rare occasion when my achievements reflected well on them.

So, when I told them that the money had not been stolen from me but from the boy sitting next to me, they had simply sent me back to that cupboard, that oh so very claustrophobic cupboard. I couldn't breathe and the boy next to me didn't help and for once, his incessant talking had silenced. It was almost as if he was scared alongside me.

That's why I always had him around. He was the one person who knew what I was feeling and did something about it. Not always something good, far from it but he didn't laugh at my emotions nor did he punish me for them. So, in another round of claustrophobia in the cupboard, (being told to think over my actions after he had thrown another vase on the floor) I decided to name him. Levi. Named after the kind lady living opposite my family's apartment's dog. Levi, I liked it. He liked it too. He smiled when I called him that. Much more fitting than boy.

As time went on, though, and I was sent more and more often to the cupboard on the second floor, I began to feel my lifeline fading. Levi was fading. That one person who understood my emotions (to which I couldn't express at such a young age) was beginning to use them against me. He was my ruin. He was the reason I was locked in that cupboard.

Another picture frame smashed. 'It was Levi!' I shouted, pointing to the boy (with an ever so present smile on his face) in the corner. 'It was him!' I continued, pointing and pointing and pointing until my arm could no longer take the strain.

My mother simply scowled and took my arm before doing the inevitable. I was in the cupboard again. They should have known by now that it only made things worse. It gave me time to pent up my anger, only to be released later on. No, wait, it didn't, it gave Levi time to do that. He brooded, his thin brows furrowing in thought as he made up his new, mischevious project.

He was my best friend and he was my nightmare. And, no one else could see him. I don't think I understood at that age why no one could see him, not that I really can now.

A year later, nothing had changed. Apart from, now, I was eight and in another class at school. That didn't make much difference, anyway, the teachers enjoyed to hate me- almost as much as I hated them. I admit, now, that I was not an easy child. I never said I was. So, when I began talking to a boy they couldn't see, I understood their confusion. What I didn't understand were their punishments.

Punishments are the one thing in life I still don't understand. When I did something wrong, the cupboard was where I would go but, as I grew older and older, the punishments began to change. My teachers began to send me to detention. My few friends began to argue back. My parents had finally realised that the cupboard clearly wasn't working. So, they changed their punishments and the moment I earned it, I had wished that I had never wanted them to stop locking me in the cupboard in the first place.