when we were young

still can't see

once again annie pulls you out of your daze with her hand brushing against your face. you look at her confused.

"why are you crying?"

you touched your face, and sure enough, it was wet with the water source being from your eyes. you hadn't even noticed. you wipe your face quickly and feel embarrassed but then again, it was just annie.

instead of giving her an answer, besides you didn't even have an answer to give her, you join annie in standing up and brush yourself off.

"come on, we have training camp to get to, y/n." annie says softly. her voice was always so soft. it was a nice break from all of the yelling commanders at camp you had to bear with all day. there was a lot of things about annie you liked. one was the fact you didn't have to feel embarrassed in front of her. another was that she was always was a constant in your life ever since you met her. she stuck right by you. you always felt lucky to have annie as a friend, it always felt like you had to be lucky that she even chose you to be her friend considering you, her dad and maybe sometimes bertholdt and marcel were the only people she cared to talk to.

as you begin your short walk to the camp annie asks, "what were you dreaming about?"

that was another thing about annie, she always seemed to read your mind, it was honestly annoying at times but that's just how in sync you guys were.

you were already trying to remember. it felt like the more you tried to remember the more the memories kept slipping away.

but what wasn't slipping away was the feeling in your chest. your heart felt heavy which explained the crying as you woke up from your nap. but no matter what you couldn't remember which made you want to start crying all over again for some reason. it felt like you were forgetting something important, or maybe someone that you didn't want to forget.

"i can't remember, it was probably something stupid." you say still wiping your face to erase any signs of your tears. the last thing you needed was anyone at the camp seeing you cry. you already had a reputation of being sensitive despite the family you came from, it was like you weren't living up to the reputation and quite frankly, it was embarrassing. as warrior candidates narrowed down and hosts were getting ready to be chosen, your family had been talking to you about how it was time to grow up and get your emotions in check. you were almost guaranteed one of the seven, however captains and commanders all had the same critique for your family when asked what could change, and that was your emotions. you were "too dependent emotionally on others" or just some critique on your emotions.

that's another reason why you admired annie so much. she was always so cool and calm. you had never seen her let her emotions get the better of her and you always credited her dad and the way he raised her for that.

it was a gloomy day out, but no rain. the walk to training camp with annie was quiet until you arrived and stepped in front of her. she gives you that same "what the hell" look and you say

"annie please don't tell anyone you saw me crying."

she rolls her eyes "you idiot, i wasn't going to. we have more important things to worry about. have you forgotten they're choosing hosts within this week? you need to get over yourself."

you sigh. "annie"

"what"

"does it look like i've been crying?"

annie rolls her eyes, "how bad was that dream you had? why are you acting so shook up? just relax, you look fine, come on." she said stepping in front of you. you follow her.

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training camp today didn't even feel like training camp. you were all down to your last week before they picked the warrior candidates to inherit the seven as annie mentioned and it seemed as though they already made up their mind of who would get what titan explaining why there was little to no training today.