Heart without a Beat

IV: Home-bound

"Get off of me." Jean spat.

"Gladly, Horseface." Eren said, slowly getting off of the other boy. "I told you not to call me that." Jean threw back at Eren.

"What are you gonna do about it?" Eren quickly stated, anger starting to course through his veins, causing him to ball up his fists, and grit his teeth. He was seething; a pot without a lid, overflowing with hot contents.

"Are you sure your mom would want you to act like such a shithead? Oh wait. Why would that matter? She's dea-."  And that was all it took for Eren to slam his fist into Jean's temple, causing the fellow teen to stumble back and nearly fall.

Jean, finally coming back to his senses although still a little disorientated, threw a punch at Eren's nose with as much force as he could muster up, causing blood to slowly trickle down his face and onto his shirt. The impact had caused his knuckles to sting, and the joints to crack.

Eren nearly toppled, but due to the adrenaline, his mind was paralysed and blinded by uncontainable rage, and thus he charged Jean and tackled him, throwing Jean to the ground and making him land hard on his back. Acute agony blossomed from the bottom of Jean's spine. Eren finally mounted him and started to throw stike and strike, causing him hold up his hands defensively to protect his face, but no such luck because Eren was relentless causing Jean's face to become slightly bloody, heavily bruised and swollen.

A punch for every single shit word you said about my mother.

Jean's vision was blackening and besides a metallic taste of blood, his senses were beginning to fade.

A tooth for every single shit word you've ever said to me. Eren felt his fists make contact with Jean's face repeatedly, as if he was a machine programmed to do only one action- punch Jean.

Once everyone got their laughs in on Jean, and realized Eren wasn't gonna stop and this was getting too serious, a scrawny boy Connie yanked him off and pushed him back, causing him to fall hard on his butt.
Jean was on the brink of losing consciousness, and blood streaked his face. He had his hand over his mouth, as if to stop the blood from flowing out unceasingly.

Eren suddenly realized what he did and felt utterly horrid. He got up and scissored his way through the crowd quickly to the upstairs bathroom.

As he arrived and realized it was empty, he entered and locked himself in. Leaning against the locked door, he let himself slide to the floor, thinking to himself, "I shouldn't have done that. That bastard's right. Mom wouldn't want me to act this way."  Eren reached out blindly and grabbed some toilet paper, plugging it up his bloodied and clogged nose.

Eren clambered to his feet, looked in the mirror and started to envision how his deceased parents used to treat him when they still breathed. Looking at his blood-crusted face and bruised nose, he started to damn them for leaving him with his Aunt's husband who beats him and his Aunt who never bats an eye in his direction.

"Why...Why did you leave me? Why didn't you two bring me with you?" His voice broke as he sunk back down to the floor, burying his face in his hands, "I can't do this. I don't know how to live like this. I'm sorry I was a coward, but I need you two. Please!"

There weren't any tears shed. His tear reservoir had been emptied long ago.

It was rather contradictory. He felt nothing.

Yet he also felt unbearable sorrow, which stung him to the core. Perhaps it was unbearable sorrow that escalated to the point where his heart no longer had room for other emotions, causing him to feel hollow and deflated.

Just as he sucked in a breath to let out a wail, there was a soft rap at the door. The music outside made it nearly impossible for him to hear the knock.

"It's locked for a goddamn reason!" He barked, whipping his head back to snarl at the door.

"I know, let me in," the voice on the other side of the door muttered. It was a feminine voice, he could tell. She added something after 'let me in', but he couldn't decipher the murmurs, drowned out by the volume of the music.

"Dammit, what the hell is it?" he softened his tone a little instinctively, seeing that it was a girl on the other side.

"It's Mikasa, please let me in." He could only hear her untruncated sentence as the DJ paused the music for a second or two to change between tracks. Mikasa. The name rung a bell. Hopefully she wasn't one of his long-forgotten flings.

"Blood hell, what do you want?" He reached for the door knob above him and gave it a twist, unlocking it to allow Mikasa in.

Mikasa gave the door a small nudge to let herself in, before locking it behind her, "I came to give you your phone back. You dropped it in the fight. I'm also here to apologize for Jean's despicable behaviours." She gingerly placed his phone on the floor, returning it to him. He hadn't even realised that it had gone missing.

Eren hadn't lifted his head to greet her. He was covering his face with the crook of his elbow, "Thanks for the phone but hey, you aren't responsible for his actions."

"H-he's my boyfriend," she blurted out. A beat. "I know he can be a bastard though."

"You're just as bad as him. You think apologising would help? You're so damn naive. I don't want you here," he spat venomously upon hearing that she was his girlfriend, "Rack off." He snapped his chin up to shoot her a death stare.

He was almost baffled upon seeing the woeful look in her gray eyes. His eyes drank in her beauty- the straight, onyx hair, the tips brushing her shoulders. Her intricately-crafted facial features muted him for at least a minute. As if feeling the weight of his stare, she hid her flushed cheeks behind the scarf wrapped loosely around her neck.

"I'm sorry, didn't mean to hurt you," he finally spoke, lowering his volume significantly. If they were in another place at another time, he would've chosen her as his next flirt-target but she didn't strike him as the type who would be flattered by pick-up lines or smooth-talking.

She crouched down beside him, "No, I'm sorry for what he did. He went too far. He shouldn't've said that about your mother."

"You don't know what he meant by that. You don't know me, Mikasa, you don't know how much that hurt," he cleared his throat, forbidding himself from talking about his mother. He didn't wish to bring it up. "I'm sorry Mikasa, I need some time alone. I want to go home."