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When you first meet him, you are eight years old and he is beautiful.
There is blood dripping sluggishly from your split lip and the tears in your eyes make your vision smear and distort, but you can see him standing a few feet away, screaming himself hoarse at the three bigger children in front of you. His figure is bright under the harsh rays of the midday sun and even at this distance you can see how fiercely green his eyes are: he’s angry. He shoves at the tallest bully, kicking him in the shin and snarling insults at him, livid and fearsome and to you, he is beautiful.
One of them punches him in the face and you cry out, scared for him, horrified that you’re dragging this stranger into your fight. But he spits at the ground and punches right back, keeps punching and kicking until the bullies huff in irritation and leave, grumbling something about, “annoying weird-ass kid not even worth our time.” They’re gone. You’re relieved.
It’s just you and the boy with green eyes and he’s looking at you, panting harshly. His knuckles are bruised.
He tugs his sleeve over his hand and roughly wipes the blood from your chin, and you yelp in surprise and pain. “Sorry,” he mumbles, his gaze still intently focused on the blood on your face.
He steps back when he’s done, nodding like he’s decided something. He holds his hand out to you. “I’m Eren,” he says. “And I’m not gonna let those jerks hurt you anymore.”
You almost scoff — those boys barely let you off now and no doubt they’ll come after you again tomorrow, but Eren’s grip is warm and firm when you reach out to take his hand. “Eren,” you murmur, and it feels right on your tongue. Eren is the boy who saved you, and that is how you remember him.
“Th-thanks,” you say. “I’m Armin.”
He grins and you think again that he is beautiful.
-
Eren becomes your very best friend. Every day you wonder why he stays, why he bothers associating with someone as weak and worthless as you. There are so many things to fear in this world — the most obvious of which are the terrifying, lumbering Titans just outside of expansive grey walls. But the one fear that sits icily in your stomach, that chills you to your fingertips, is the fear that Eren will leave you someday, abandon you like you always expect him to.
“Wanna hear a story?” you ask, a leather-bound book on your lap. He nods eagerly, scooting closer to you under the shade of a tree. He has an apple in his hand and he bites into it as you begin, “Once upon a time…”
You save the ending for the next day and you know you’ll have him until at least tomorrow because of it. You don’t want there to be an end. You want him to stay with you forever, perhaps, if that’s long enough. There are only so many stories in the book, you fear you’ll run out and Eren will finally get bored and move on. It scares you so badly your voice nearly trembles as you read from the pages.
You keep reading, keep talking, keep showing Eren pictures of snow-covered mountains and vast deserts. When you tell him about the ocean, he perks up at the excitement in your voice and you know he’s just as enchanted as you are.
“We’ll go see it together someday,” you tell him. He smiles and curls his little finger around yours in a promise. It’s another story without an ending and this time the story stretches further than the ones kept in your book. You hope it is enough.
-
You’re twelve and your legs are aching from the twenty laps you ran around the dusty track on the training grounds. Sitting outside of the barracks at night with your hair still dripping wet from your shower, you and Eren look up at the multitudes of stars, so small, so bright, and you talk about memories that hurt to dig up. You unearth them anyway, not so much reopening old wounds as stroking your hands over them, careful not to catch your nails on sensitive scar tissue and gritting your teeth through the pain when you do.
He talks about his mother. She was very kind, that much you remember. The way he talks about her paints her vivid and colorful but without a single drop of red. Her dress was always warm when he hugged her, Eren says; he remembers her warmth most of all.
There’s silence, then he asks quietly, “Tell me a story.”
You oblige. You always do.
-
The night before graduation, all the tables in the mess hall are pushed to the walls to make room for dancing. Inside it is raucous and loud and people are drinking, laughing, so young and free you find it dizzying, exhilarating.
You step outside to catch your breath, the night air cool and refreshing as it fills your lungs. You hear someone open the doors behind you and you already know who it is.
“Crowded in there, huh?” Eren says, coming to stand beside you.
You shrug. “Don’t want to dance?” you ask playfully. Eren snorts.
“You know as well as I do that I’m a shitty dancer.”
You get an idea, then. When you hold out a hand and give him a look, Eren laughs in disbelief and steps away.
“No,” he says through a grin, shaking his head. You raise your eyebrows at him and he says again, “No, I won’t— no way.”
Grabbing his hand, you pull him close and he huffs your name out in a laugh. It leaves you feeling lightheaded. You place his hands on your hips and drape your arms over his shoulders, around his neck. Muffled sounds of music can still be heard from the dining hall, a beat formed from stomping feet and young voices and it’s more than enough for you to dance to. The two of you are swaying more than dancing, but Eren still glares at his feet in concentration and it’s your turn to laugh.
He relaxes at the sound of your voice and eases you closer. You breathe out slowly, and he breathes with you. You are both fifteen and you would spend eternities like this. Just like this.
-
You watch Eren die and your world doesn’t turn black, no, it turns red, bright red, sickeningly red. It stains your hands and won’t disappear no matter how hard you scrape your fingers against the shingled roof you’re sitting on, no matter how many tears you wipe from your aching eyes.
Mikasa asks about Eren. You choke as you say, “killed in action… died in my stead,” and those words are red, too — thick and heavy and dribbling from your mouth like blood.
-
When he emerges from that Titan (alive, whole, alive), your breath comes out broken and sharp against your throat as you lace your fingers with his, feeling his fingertips brush against your knuckles. You weep loudly with Mikasa — Eren dying was the ending neither of you wanted — and in the jumbled mess of your thoughts, both of you promise to never let it happen again.
-
There’s an apple in Eren’s hand and when he kisses you, you can taste the cold sweetness of it on his lips.
The apple tumbles to the ground as you tug Eren forward by the lapels of his jacket and the two of you fall back onto your bed, mouths still connected, tongues flickering in and out, hot, slick. He runs his hands eagerly up and down your sides and you tangle your fingers in his hair. You move desperately, as if time is slipping through your hands like grains of sand, like steam, as if this is the last time and you’ve finally reached the end that you’ve feared for so long.
When he touches you the fear dissipates, chased away by the warmth and light that is and always will be Eren. He slides feverishly hot palms over your skin, coaxing sighs and gasps from your mouth, and you can feel his heart beating fervently in time with yours.
Eternities, remember, you wanted eternities. But if minutes and hours are all you have you’ll take them, all of them. Every second, every breath, every brush of lips; his and yours, for as long as you can keep them.
Daylight filters through the room’s single window and softens his edges, turns him golden. You are seventeen and you surrender to Eren like you have so many times before. It feels as if he’s breathed a star into you, hot and glowing in the cavity of your chest — blindingly bright, so bright.
-
You can taste the faintest drop of salt on your tongue, nearly unnoticed amongst the viscous red gurgling in the back of your throat, coating your mouth. But it’s there: fleeting, tiny, almost sweet and you think, the sea. Your vision is unfocused and dimming at the edges but you can still make out Eren hunched over you, face shadowed and shoulders trembling. Saltwater drips onto the corner of your mouth, rolls down your cheek, and you want to say, the sea, Eren, we’ve reached it, I told you we’d see it together, but you find that breathing is its own struggle right now.
Dying, you think hazily, and it sounds distant, as if your thoughts are moving slowly underwater.
Eren clutches your green cloak with unsteady fists as he hunches further down to press his forehead against yours. Droplets begin to trickle onto your face and it’s not sea water, you realize, it’s not the ocean. Your heart suddenly feels heavy but what breaks it is Eren looking at you with green eyes that hold universes, green eyes that you love, green eyes that are wide and wet and sad. Please don’t cry, you think, please don’t be sad.
It takes all of your strength to lift your hands and wipe your thumbs against the wetness staining his cheeks.
Your voice is faint and small when you ask, “Shall I tell you a story?”
“Armin,” he gasps, and you can feel more of his tears drip, drip down his face and onto your skin.
You take a shallow, weak breath before you continue, “It’s not a very long story — it’s about a boy who fell in love with another boy, bright as the sun. He loved him more than anything in the world, and he was so scared of the day the story would end and the boy would leave him.”
You smile, just a bit, and you can feel blood in the cracks between your teeth.
“But in their time together, they lived through many smaller stories. Sad stories, fun stories, frightening stories. But they were theirs, and he loved the boy so much he treasured every moment like glass. Like sunlight.”
Eren stares at you, his lips quivering around his exhales. His tears have slowed, clinging to the tips of dark eyelashes.
He loved him so much, he told stories with the endings cut off so the boy would have to come back to hear them. He loved him so much, he pulled corpses from the depths of their memories and recounted everything about them even though it hurt. He loved him so much, he asked him to dance even when he knew he was a terrible dancer.
You want to say all these things, but your body grows weaker with every pulse of you seeping into the grass.
Instead, you run your palm down his cheek and press fingertips against his lips. “They were going to see the ocean together,” you breathe. “But it was okay. He died loving him, and he died knowing that he was loved back. That was all the ending he needed.”
Eren chokes out a sob against your fingers before he grasps your wrist to pull your hand away and kiss you, his mouth warm and familiar even through the tears. You smile against his lips before you cough harshly, flecks of red staining your kiss.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” but he shakes his head and licks the blood from his mouth, from your mouth. He lets out a shaky breath and cradles your face in his hands, his eyes never leaving yours. Green and blue, like the ocean you’ll never see, like the world you barely tasted.
You’re tired. Very tired. Eren presses another kiss against your lips, softly, gently, and both of your faces are damp now.
You want to say I love you but you know it’s unnecessary. Eren doesn’t need words and promises to keep him — he stays with you even in the silence.
When you last see Eren, you are eighteen years old and he is beautiful. Before the end, you remember most clearly his eyes, brilliantly green, and the feeling of light blossoming in your chest: very warm, then very cold.