You know that feeling when you're chasing down the streets, completely carefree and with a smile plastered on your face?
Yeah, I'm not really getting that.
Behind himself Eren found that the street brats caught up to him more and more every second. He would like to think that it had something to do with the fact that he let them and not with the burning in his legs, the scratches or the blood on his stomach.
"Keep running, freak!", one of them shouted.
Let's make one thing clear:
Eren was not the type to back down from a challenge that fast. But getting home all bloody and roughed up has gotten him into much more trouble than necessary on a quiet summer evening.
"Fucking catch me and we'll see who's the real freak around here!", he called over his shoulder, aware of the impact his provocative words had on their simple minds.
As expected they sped up quite a bit and Eren shifted his focus on the small paths ahead of him, leading them through little Shiganshina with those old huts and women who he merely greeted with a cheeky smile and a wink when he passed them.
Eren hurried around the next corner, evading the few people still outside.
"Out of my way!", he yelled and jumped on barrels and slats to get through the crowd of people too dense to move out of his way, getting knocked down by his pursuers.
"Come back, rat!", another one of them screeched but unlike them he knew which ways to turn and which ones to avoid around this time. Sadly, they lacked the speed and the agility years of climbing on roofs and jumping through the city had gifted Eren with and so it wasn't much a surprise for the boy when the noise of steps behind me ceased.
Beaming in triumph he cheered up and stopped his run only after ensuring that the pursuers were gone for sure.
Then he headed back to the corner where the fun had started this time.
Eren swung through the city with the help of signs, hanging from brittle sticks, enjoying the familiar creak when they had to bear his weight for a second.
When he jumped down from a ladder, he had used to get faster around a corner Eren was greeted by a curled-up ball of blond hair and wide eyes.
"Eren! You're back!"
He landed next to his friend and pushed some strands of his brownish hair nonchalant behind his ear. His grin was wide enough to reach the young boy's ears.
"You didn't think they would catch me, did you now?"
His friend chuckled and got up, holding the book in his hands tighter to his chest. Engraved on it were some kind of dirty letters in a language Eren couldn't understand.
"Those books always get you in trouble.", he stated and aimlessly walked beside his friend, hands hidden in the pockets of his jeans. The holes in it never bothered him, unlike his mother who always chastised him for ruining every single piece of clothing she bought him.
Armin smiled softly, caressing the book cover with a thumb.
"I know. But that's only because those fools don't understand the importance of knowledge written down. Those books will be more important than meaningless words in the face of time."
Eren shrugged, not caring at all if most of those boys their age called Armin a heretic for doing what he loved. After all, Eren himself came from the origin of this corrupted and gruesome society.
They wandered around Shiganshina some more until Armin had to get home to his grandfather. After his parent's death he was the only relative he had left and Eren made sure that the blond knew that he also had a family in him and Mikasa, his older sister.
She was adopted but that didn't make them any less siblings.
"I should also get going.", Eren said his goodbyes at Armin's old house, as dilapidated as one could expect in a poor city like Shiganshina. In all of Eldia there were only a few minor places as destitute as his home for many years.
"Say hi to your mom for me, Eren."
"Will do. Make sure to visit her sometimes."
After waving a last time at his best friend Eren left to get home as well.
- - -
Home.
Eren had lived in Shiganshina for almost ten years now and in that short time the city with all it's mistakes, the dirt and the grim people had grown dear to him.
"I'm home!", he shouted when he opened the door to the hovel his family lived in. Even though it was so poorly built and the floorboards were louder than his mother would have liked she had gone to great lengths to transform the somber atmosphere into something akin to light and serenity.
"Welcome back." His mother stepped into the small corridor marking the entrance of their little home, a gentle smile on her face and embracing her son who tried to get away from the touch.
"Mom, I'm too old for that sort of hugs.", he complained and his mother laughed.
"And which kind would that be, young man? A mother always has the right to hug her son." She went back into the kitchen. She had replaced the old boards there with new, fresh one she had chopped down in the woods just outside Shiganshina.
Sunlight streamed through the window and decorated the floor with warm rays. The evening called out to them and Eren started to feel the toll of his daily workout with the scum of Shiganshina.
"No comment on my appearance?", he dared to ask when his mother inspected his clothes and his battered face without saying another word and continuing her daily chores.
"Would me scolding you change anything? The damage is done.", she sighed. "Just hand over your trousers once you're bathed and have changed into clothes that don't need any repairing by now."
He sheepishly rubbed over the back of his head, messing up the bun his hair had been worked into and freeing them from the band holding every strand together. They flew around his face and over his shoulders like a silken waterfall and shook his head to loose up the tension that had built up over quite some time on his scalp.
Leaving his mother to preparing dinner he went up the stairs, aged and groaning under his every step. He loved the sound of it. He loved that he knew where to step to make nearly no noise or which steps to avoid because they were so fragile already.
Once he was upstairs he only had the choice between two doors:
The first one on the left was his mother's room. He knew it by heart, having spent far too many nights by her side after they had arrived here. He had feared every shadow, every movement of any creature and any sound he couldn't place to an explanation.
The second one on the right belonged to Mikasa and him. They had shared the room for some years now and even though many of the boys he had met in the old, scruffy school of Shiganshina complained about their sisters all the time he found that he didn't mind sharing with his.
They rarely fought over food and if they did it was about who would give it to the other one so they wouldn't go to bed hungry as it was often the case. Hence their somewhat skinny bodies.
He walked straight into the room, not minding Mikasa's half naked body. Her hair was wet and some drops left on her shoulders.
"Home already?", her snarky remark came the second she noticed her brother's presence.
"Thought it was better not to let you alone with mom. Who knows what you're up to with that creative mind of yours."
"Creative being your very own synonym for dangerous?" She put on a loose shirt, hanging over the trousers he had given her a year ago.
Many of their neighbors had tried to talk Carla into making her adopted daughter wear dresses and skirts and whatnot. But his mother had only declined politely, giving the same answer to every single one of them.
None of her children had to dress the way others wanted them to if they didn't feel comfortable with it.
When Mikasa got word of what had happened behind her back only Eren knew how grateful she was. Ever since Carla had given her a new, loving home Mikasa did her very best to repay the debt she insisted existed in her heart.
After telling her over and over that there was no debt to repay and Mikasa not listening to him Eren stopped and helped her instead, lending her a hand wherever she needed one.
"Creative being my synonym for 'not to underestimate'.", he retorted and watched her braiding her raven black hair. She never waited for it to dry.
"You look awful. What happened?" She eyed him curiously, hiding the concern behind a raised eyebrow. She resembled his mother even without any relation by blood.
"Armin got bullied. I told them they were dumb shits. They beat me up. That's it.", he summed up his afternoon and imagined how his sister was rolling her eyes behind his back.
"You just like to get in trouble, don't you?"
He grinned at her, his eyes closed in bliss.
"Trouble finds me on it's own. And I welcome it with open arms. As always."
"And you end up with more bruises than medals. As always."
Eren searched his shelve for any clothes he could wear – not that there was that much of a variety for him to choose from – until Mikasa handed him light-green, short-sleeved shirt and brown trousers with only one hole in it.
"Take that. I'm gonna help mom with dinner.", she said and left the room after a last disapproving look on her brother's bruises.
Meanwhile Eren took the clothes with him outside behind the house where something only distantly related to a shower stood, it's cold water waiting for the hissing boy. His family and three others shared the shower and so it was not much of a surprise to meet the oldest son of their neighbors when he stepped out of it, drying himself with an old towel.
"Eren, what took you so fucking long? Wanking off in the shower, or what?"
"Shut the fuck up, horseface. Is there no one else waiting for that unintelligent mouth of yours?"
"If that's a reference to Marco..."
"Would never dream of it."
Jean and Eren had met only a year after arriving in Shiganshina. At first their fights were a daily occurrence to witness for every bored human being in their surroundings. They ended with bruised knuckles and red and blue faces more often than not.
But when they put their differences aside, they were just two teenagers bickering with each other.
"Heard what you did for Armin today. Knew those guys."
"Of course you did, horseface.", Eren snorted and got out of Jean's way to let the boy through to the shower. He eyed the sand-haired young man with a wary face, when he noticed the worried sparkle in his otherwise so straight and upright eyes.
"Something on your mind?", he asked his friend, rubbing his hair dry with the already soaked towel in his hands, giving up halfway and tying up the strands into a messy bun.
"Have you heard of the rumors, yet?"
"Rumors?", Eren repeated the world bewildered and tilted his head, attentive for once. Such a change of his friend's mood was rare and all the stranger.
"The troops of King Grisha. They have invaded Marley again. This time they fear that the answer will result in war."