Cringy Cringe

Chapter 9

My pencil danced over the paper, forming letters that turned into words. I wrote a letter outside under a tree. A letter to someone special. Someone I hold dearly in my heart. Someone I want to spent the rest of my life with. A letter for Levi. Just in case I die next time. I...don't want to leave him without a word or an goodbye. And since we were done with Eren's tests for today, I could take my time to write it.
"(y/n)." A shadow fell over me. Looking up, I was met with the sight of a young male.
"Sup, Jean."
"Levi is searching for you." informed me the younger one.
"Alright." I carefully fold the paper. I've just finished writing it.
"What were you doing?" asked Jean.
"Nothing important." I stood up
"Thanks for telling me, Jean. I go to him." I patted his shoulder in a friendly way and made my way towards the little house. Levi would be surely somewhere in there.
"N...no problem."

I found Levi pretty fast. He was indeed inside of the house.
"Heard you searched for me." I began the conversation.
"Where were you?" he questioned me. Was he searching for me for a long time?
"Outside, under a tree. Listening to the birds and felt the wind."
Levi looked me up and down. The letter was hidden in my ass pocket. Levi leaned against the wall. "Eren woke up and couldn't remember a damn thing again."
I leaned next to him on the wall. Eren... I had the feeling that one day he will do something really bad and we will all have to suffer because of him. Eren was a dangerous weapon. Welp, let's hope he doesn't go crazy and kill everyone. "Well, at least he isn't in a crystal like Annie." I said and shrugged my shoulders "I think we have to get used to his memory loss. I kinda feel bad for him. It's surely scary to turn into a titan and lose your memory." There was a quiet pause in our conversation.
"...We got a message with new orders from Erwin." he told me more quiet.
"Alright, just tell me what to do." ...like always...
Levi showed me shortly the paper with the orders without murmuring a word. There were some informations written on it. It seems like we need to leave, go to Trost, let "Eren" and "Historia" getting kidnapp and get some informations. I nodded when I was finish reading. Levi put it away again.
"I hope Erwin is doing fine." I said while staring at the opposite wall.
"I'm sure he is." He crossed his arms in front of his chest "Don't worry too much about him."
"Yeah, but I'm worried that he goes crazy after losing his arm."
"I understand you but we have to concentrate on protecting Eren and Historia and follow the orders."
"I know.." I sighed and pushed myself off the wall "It's just...hard not to worry about everyone."
"(y/n), as long as I'm here, you don't have to be worried." Levi stated firmly. I stared at him
"You sure?" I raised one of my eyebrows in question. There was silence. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. "I'm sorry... I.. I'm still not over Mike's death and it makes me think...a lot."
"About what?" he sounded a bit worried.
"My own death, your death, Hanji's death, Erwin's death, everyone's deaths. I'm sick of people dying, especially if they're close to me." I never was the person who could handle losing loved ones easily. It always affected me badly.
"There, there." Levi patted my head in a calm manner. "Where is your carelessness gone?"
"Dunno. It just disappeared." I gave him a fake smile. He didn't return it instead he dropped his hand. A heavy sigh left his lips. "Let's get the others. We need to go soon." I nodded.
It didn't took long to gather all and showing them the orders.
After Levi burned the paper, I left to gather my stuff in the room I slept in. It wasn't much. A few pieces of clothes, a pen and some paper and an old knife that I got as a child as a gift from some guy. I couldn't remember much about him. Not even his name if he ever told me that. I only could recall that he was a customer of my mother's tea shop...and that I practiced my stealing ability on him but I gave him his items always back because my mother didn't enjoyed my stealing tendencies especially when I did it to the customers which I rarely did and only to those who seemed to be fine with it.
Was my stealing the reason why no customers came? Was it my fault?
"You're done?" a far too familiar voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I blinked a few times.
"Yeah, almost." I mumbled to Levi. I looked up at him. "Do you by any chance remember the guy I got this knife from?"
Levi narrowed his eyes. "Didn't you get it before we've met?"
I looked down at the knife in my hand and furrowed my eyebrows. Right, I've met Levi a few months after this guy disappeared. I shook my head and hid my knife in one of my boots.
"Everything alright?" Levi sounded a bit worried.
"I guess." I paused a bit "My mind just went to the past." I put on my coat and gave Levi a smile. "Don't worry my mind is back now and is focused on our mission."
He nodded. "Good. We need to go now." He walked through the doorway and stopped suddenly. Levi's eyes looked back at me. "You know you can still talk with me about things that are bothering you from your past."
"Yeah, I know." I returned with a small smile "I hope you know that I'm also always there for you." Levi blinked and continued to leave. I swung my bag over my back and looked one last time back into the room. I actually shared it with Levi but since he barely sleeps at night he didn't really used it. I sighed and left the room completely and joined the rest of the squad.
The walk through the forest was quiet. Sometimes you could hear Sasha and Connie fooling and joking around. I liked their friendship. It reminded me that they're still children.

At night we reached a higher point without many trees and with a perfect view to the small house we just have left. There were people with torches.
"That was close.." mumbled Connie when he looked back at the house "What would have happened to us... if we have stayed tonight...?"
I nudged him with my shoulder playfully. "Don't think about the ifs too much."
"Captain.. Is that the First Interior Squad?" asked Armin.
"Well... I didn't expect them to see them here so fast but...they also underestimated me." Levi answered and continued to walk away "Let's go to the meeting place. Luckily the moon is shining tonight."
I walked up next to Levi. My eyes fell done to the gun in my hands. Levi gave everyone a gun before we left. I could tell he didn't like to give me one. Not that I couldn't handle one, Erwin and Mike taught me how to use one, but we both know that I didn't like them. They were too noisy. They were created to kill. Animals and humans. I took a deep breath in and let it out after a few seconds. I looked up again. I won't kill anyone. I swore that the first time I've lost someone dear to me. I won't let anyone live through this pain intentionally.

~a lil note from me the author~
Hi to whoever reading this (even though I doubt that someone is still reading this but meh), the story is now undead in other words I got back into Aot thanks to some random playlist on YouTube :D
But now let's get a bit more serious, there will be a few changes. If you couldn't tell my text layout changed a bit and maybe also my writing style (I'm not really sure about that lol). I'm still unsure if I going to rewrite/edit the former chapters. There are a few things I would like to change or add (like for example the whole thing with Connie's mom being now a titan and (y/n) having kinda a "small" crisis about that) but we will see if I stay lazy and let them be orrrr if I change them.
And please don't be too surprised if (y/n) or any other character changes too much all of a sudden. I'm trying my best here so please bear with me.

And for the end here a small fun fact: this book fallows the Manga...the German version. So yeah I translate the dialogues into English just for this fanfiction. That's the reason why some lines may be a bit off/odd. Just see it as my suffering (._.)

Welp bye bye, guys. Have fun or something.