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Eren
"Goodmorning Eren! It's nice outside, you should go out to the garden." Hange hands me my meds, I take them and then hand them the empty paper cup.
Once again the sun was avoiding my room. It's been a week since the blond next door moved in, he walks past my door two times everyday. Once to go to the group and another time to come back. There seemed to be this bright aura around him. I don't know how he's so happy, he's dying and so are all his friends. Often times he was carrying books with him, actually it was one singular book, I wonder if he's read it multiple times.
"No thanks Hange." I sigh and slouch down in my semi-comfortable hospital bed.
"You need to do something other than stare at the wall." Hange crosses their arms and taps their foot against the hard floor.
I continue to stare at the wall infront of me, "Maybe one day I'll stare so hard that a hole will appear." Hange does not laugh at my joke.
"Come on Eren, we're going to go to the gardens." Hange rips the covers off of my legs and then grabs my IV stand and rolls it over.
"Hange I don-"
"Here's your slippers."
I could tell they weren't going to give up on this so I slipped on my slippers and then stood up. I grabbed my IV stand and followed Hange out of the room.
Armin
I've spent most of the last week with the group. I have a book that I take there to read to everyone. I enjoy their company and they enjoy mine. On nicer days like today we go down to the gardens.
We were all currently walking towards the bright garden. Marco was pushing Jean in a wheelchair, Sahsa and Connie were racing towards the door even though Sasha shouldn't be running cause of her liver failure, and Ymir and Historia were walking while holding hands. When we get there we sit in our usual area on a few benches.
"We should make flower crowns!" Historia suggests.
"Sounds fun." I stand up and follow her over to a patch of flowers. We grab enough for everyone and then walk back. We set them in a pile and let everyone pick out the ones they want.
Eren
Hange and I are sitting together on a bench staring at all the plants that surround us.
"Hey look over there!" I look at where Hange is pointing to, it's that group of people and the boy from the room next door. They're making flower crowns. "Go say hi!"
"No thanks."
"Please Eren, you need to socialize with people other than me."
"Are you saying you don't enjoy my company?" I ask faking a sad expression and holding my heart.
"Not at all, but I think it'd be good for you if you made more friends."
I looked back at the group of sickly people, they were smiling and laughing together. One person my eyes really focused on was the blond from room 107. His hair is a little past his ears and he has a undercut. He's wearing a pair of loose fitting plaid pajama pants and a big grey T-shirt. He looked really happy as he folded a flower stem in on itself.
"Eren. Hello? Are you listening to me?" I snap out of the trance I was in as Hange waves their hand infront of my face. "Who were you staring at?"
"No one."
"Was it him." They point at the 107 boy and smile at me.
"No, I wasn't staring at anything."
"Eren as your nurse I am ordering you to go talk to them." Hange demands with a straight face. I sigh and then slowly stand up. I take a breath before I walk towards the small group with my IV stand in my hand.
"Uh...hey." I scratch the back of my neck as I approach them.
"Hey, you're in the room next to mine aren't you?" 107 asks.
"Yeah."
"Cool, I'm Armin. Wanna join us."
I look back and Hange who is happily smiling at me, they give me two thumbs up. I sigh and nod, Armin scoots over and hands me a small stack of flowers.
"I'm Eren by the way."
"Hi Eren, I'm Historia."
"Ymir."
"Connie!"
"Jean."
"Marco."
"And Sahsa!"
"So what's wrong with you?" Ymir asks.
I point to my chest where my failing heart is at.
"Me too." Historia sighs, "It sucks doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
As we continued to talk I learned that Ymir has FFI and is dating Historia. Jean's organs are failing, Sasha has Liver failure, Connie has alzheimers, Marco has lung cancer, and Armin has brain cancer. They're such a happy group of people in such a depressing situation.
I wonder how they do it, how they keep their smiles on knowing full well that they're just going to slowly die off until the last one's left. It's sad to think about but it's the truth they would all have to face, and I want nothing to do with it.
Armin shows me how to fold the flower stems so that they don't come apart. It was much harder than it looked and my shaky hands did not help. Everytime I messed up Armin would let out a small chuckle and then help me out. "You're not so good at this." He says in a sweet tone while fixing my mistakes.
"Arts and crafts weren't my thing growing up." He hands me the crown back and then continues on his.
"That's ok, I don't mind helping."
Out of all people to have brain Cancer why was it him? He's smart, he reads for fun. So why does it have to be his brain that's failing him? And why did I care so much?
