False Pretense [EreRi/RiRen AU]

Chapter 12: The End Of All Things

Shitty and unedited chapter ahead. My mind is a mess in the past few days. I also feel like my angst writing is rusty. Oh well, happy reading, I guess...?

*****

It felt like everything became frozen, like we were in a movie that was put into pause when our eyes met, my mind reeling as my consciousness try not to believe what's happening right now. As I stared into his turquoise eyes, I can't help but think that everything's a fucking joke, a sick joke that someone did to me while cameras are hiding everywhere. What the fuck is this? What the fuck is happening?

None of us bothered to move nor utter a single damn word. The air is so full of tension, making my lungs feel constricted. I can feel my heart slowly starting to beat erratically, my eyes still wide as I look into an equally, if not, wider turquoise eyes of Eren.

Isabel is the first one who gotten over her shock. She slowly loosened her stiff body and look at me, her gaze holding nervousness in it as she sent me a wavering smile. "Levi..."

I didn't bother to look at her, keeping my eyes fixed on Eren who's still looking back at me, fear and panic reflecting in his eyes. Isabel moved and stood in front of Eren, blocking him from me. "Levi, how long have you've been here?"

Taking a few deep shaky breaths, I tried to compose my mind, reorganizing the mess it has become. I studied Isabel's nervous gaze on me, and it just made me more sure that everything I heard is true.

"Long enough to hear everything I need to fucking hear." My voice is surprisingly controlled, not voicing out any of my confusion, of my anger, of my hurt, of any of these damn emotions storming inside me. I never felt like this, never been this out of control of my emotions but this fucking time isn't like the rest.

It's like a fucking bucket of ice cold water was thrown at me, realization hitting me like a train traveling plenty of miles per hour. So all this time I was being fucking fooled? All this time I'm believing at something fake? All this time I am with Eren and not with Rein?

My body started to shake with anger, all the emotions swirling inside my body like a hurricane coming out. Eren stood up from his place behind Isabel, looking at me with a blank expression. The look he has on his face fueled the anger inside me, unable to believe that even after his fucking secret has been revealed, that even after I discovered that he has been fooling me all this fucking time, he has the nerve to look at me like that, like he did nothing wrong.

I couldn't speak despite having thousand of questions inside my mind. My hands curled into tight fists which will surely leave red crescent marks on my palm at the end of this all. I want to believe that this isn't real, that hurting myself would wake me up and return me to the real world, would return me to a world where being with Rein is anything but a lie.

Instead, it just made me more aware that none of these is a dream. That this is the painful reality that I need to face, that the reality I've been living at for the past few months is nothing but pretense.

"Izzy, move." His voice sounded so defeated, like he finally reached the end of the game. Why? Because he fucking got caught? Because he wouldn't be able to fool and play me like a fucking card again?

Isabel looked back at him, a pained expression on her face as she looked at him pleadingly. "Eren, let me—"

"No." Eren's stern voice cut her off, looking at her with a look that held finality in it. "This is my problem. Let me fix it alone. Leave."