|𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠e𝐥𝐲 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞| ᵃʳᵐⁱⁿ ᵃˡᵉʳᵗ

|16| God Fucking Damn It Annie

*Warnings: Language, Violence*

-PARADIS-

A few days later, Y/n life continued as normal. During the day, she was Sasha's best friend, Mikasa's training partner, and she was followed around by Armin like a puppy. She didn't mind, because when he wasn't following her, she was following him. Armin had let her in on all his theories about who the enemy is and such, though he kept it most confidential since he started working closer with the Commander. By night, she was with Reiner and Bertholdt, conspiring their next move. The threats Reiner had made that day with Marco worked. If she had to play the part on both sides to keep Armin safe, then that's what she'd do. They were all worried about the Annie situation, since Y/n had filled them in on some of Armin's theories. But she didn't tell them everything. She'd tell them the big picture, but she couldn't bring herself to betray Armin completely, even though she already had a thousand times over by then.

As always, she was doing her daily chores around the castle. She was required to clean certain rooms on certain days, taking rotations with other people. During her cleaning, a familiar black haired captain knocked on the door frame of the room. She turned and got startled, quickly going into a salute. "Uh- Captain Levi," she said as he ushered her salute away.

"Come to my office, I need to speak with you," he said as he walked out of the room. Y/n scrambled out quickly after him.

"Am I in trouble, Sir?" she asked him.

"No, you haven't done anything wrong," he assured her as he opened the door to his office. It was clean, shiny even. Of course, what else was he to do in the little free time he had other than clean? "Sit."

Y/n sat down on the chair that faced his desk, he sat on the chair behind his desk, taking a sip of tea that he was carrying with him the entire time. "We're having a meeting tonight, Eren, the Commander and I will be there, along with some of your other peers. I expect you be there," he told her.

"When is it?" she asked.

"Oh, Arlert insisted he fetch you," the captain answered, "I mean, he's the reason you've been invited to this meeting." Y/n nodded in response. "Now unless there's anything else, you are dismissed."

"Actually Sir, there is something I've been meaning to ask," she stated. "How do you cope?"

"Pardon?" Levi seemed to have taken the comment the wrong way than Y/n intended.

"I mean, with all the dying? Knowing that you could be responsible for a lot of deaths..." Y/n looked down to her gloved hands, her fingers intertwining and fidgeting together.

"Refrain from forming an attachment to people. This is no place for relationships of any kind." Levi put his tea down and watched her as she fidgeted. "But you're not responsible for any deaths, so why are you asking?"

"What if I was, and I've already formed attachments to a lot people, then what do I do?" she kept her head down the whole time.

"Distract yourself, distance yourself, talk to someone about it. If you're grieving over someone's death, find someone who can relate." He watched as water filled the brims of her eyes. She didn't want to cry in front of The Captain. Then again, if I present myself as a weak little girl who cries over things, I probably wont be a suspect for anything anytime soon.

"I've tried to distance myself, and I can't talk to anyone. I just- I have so much guilt that's built up over the past five years, and I don't know how to let it out without it coming out in one big embarrassing heap," she explained. Despite her ulterior motives, everything she was saying was true, just not in the context he was thinking.