Love Me Not - {riren au}

Love Me Not ~ 66

Eren laughed. "My parents only had me. Then they adopted Mikasa. So this is a joke."

"I'm older than you. He was with my mother before he met yours." Zeke stated, standing up to face Eren. "We got back into contact recently. My mother kept me abroad and cut all ties with him. I finally found him after all of this time."

"He never mentioned you. Not once." Eren said back.

"Why else would I be just sitting in your house?" Zeke said defensively.

The two turned when they heard the door open.

Grisha stood there and sighed. "This isn't how I wanted you to meet. Of course you have to be early the one day I was expecting you not to be, Eren."

"So..why didn't you tell me I had a brother?" Eren asked.

"Have." Zeke corrected, and then added, "Why didn't you tell him that he has a brother? Did your second wife even know?"

"Both of you sit." Grisha motioned to the table.

Once Eren and Zeke sat down, he sat with them. "I'm going to be starting from the beginning. When I was younger, I fell in love with a woman named Dina Fritz. She was visiting the country. Well, let's just say things happened in her time here with me and Zeke was born. Our relationship took a turn and we split, but had discussed co-parenting. That was important for me. She just disappeared with my son back to her home country and I couldn't find her. I tried for so long."

Eren listened closely and glanced over at Zeke, who didn't seem surprised. He had obviously heard this part of the story if he had been contacting Grisha. He was waiting for Karla to be mentioned.

"I didn't think I'd be able to get past it. Not a day passed that I didn't think about Zeke. One day I met Karla, and she really helped me with my suffering. The most amazing thing about her was how caring and supportive she was and not once did she pry. I fell in love with her and we had Eren. I told myself I would never speak of it because I was a failure of a father with Zeke. I told myself I would be as present as possible for Eren..." Grisha looked down at the table.

"But you disappeared. You've been gone for months. You come home to sleep, and even then, sometimes you stayed out." Eren mumbled.

"Well, now I can tell you why. I was trying to get Zeke over here. He finally found me and made contact, but getting him into the country was hard. We've been dealing with his citizenship. He was taken at such a young age and all record of him just disappeared." Grisha said back.

"Where is your mom now?" Eren asked.

"At home. I left." Zeke sighed.

"Your mom is alive.. and you left her?" Eren frowned.

"Eren." Grisha sighed. "Sometimes things like this happen."

"But she's alive. My mom is dead, I would kill to see my mom." Eren said back quickly.

"I needed to leave." Zeke answered. "I know you may not agree with my choice to leave her behind, but it was best for me. My upbringing was spent constantly being told how horrible my father was. I was brainwashed into thinking that he left us, when in reality, she left him behind. I was told I looked like him and that she didn't even want to look at me. So tell me Eren, would you still stay after years of torture?"

Eren stayed silent. He wanted to argue back, but he didn't have anything to say. He truly didn't know if he'd be able to stay.

Grisha could feel the tension in the air. "Zeke is going to be staying with us until his citizenship is all settled and he can get a job."

"Whatever." Eren stood from the table. "If that's all you need me here for then I'm going back out."

"Eren.." Grisha's voice trailed off.

"This is a lot okay? I'm not mad or anything. I just need to think and process it." Eren went to the front door. As he opened it, Mikasa stood on the other side.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Mikasa asked.

"You'll see." Eren passed Levi and headed back to Levi's apartment.

-

"He just left." Levi said into the phone.

"What do you mean he just left?" A voice spoke from the phone.

"He left. Duh." Another voice spoke.

"I think I scared him off." Levi murmured.

"How so?" Erwin asked.

Levi had Hanji and Erwin on speaker as he cleaned his kitchen. "I don't know how the topic came up but I briefly mentioned college and stupid shit like hooking up. He told me that him and that blonde kid, Armin, kissed before we even started dating. I think he got annoyed that I didn't care."

"Well, why didn't you care?" Hanji asked.

"We weren't even together." Levi sighed. "Am I just missing something?"

"Yeah, definitely." Erwin chuckled. "Most people get jealous."

"There's no reason to be. So now he's annoyed with me over this?" Levi groaned. He turned when he heard his front door open.

"Well, you seemed to get pretty annoyed when I put my hand on—" Erwin started, but was cut off.

"Enough." Levi murmured into the phone.

He poked his head out of his kitchen entrance to see that Eren had walked back in.

"Who's there?" Hanji asked. She could hear the door.

"Eren's back. I'm hanging up." Levi hung up before either of them could say anything.

"Back so soon?" Levi took off his gloves he had been using for cleaning.

"Too much was going on at home. I needed to leave." Eren slipped his shoes off and shuffled over to the couch. He plopped down and watched as Levi went to sit next to him.

"Care to elaborate?" Levi asked.

"Not really." Eren mumbled. "I can barely process it."

"Alright." Levi reached down and ran a hand through Eren's hair. "Anything I can do to take your mind off of it?"

Eren nodded. "Definitely." He sat up and faced the other. "Where we left off earlier."

"So... you leave me hanging and come back now wanting to?" Levi tilted his head.

"What? You don't want to?"

"I never said that."

-

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