Holding Everything

Chapter 19: Sudden Sleep

Eren

"We're going to head back home for now, if Kou returns here, please tell him to give us a call so we can meet up." Rika slides a paper over to Kou's grandfather as she says this, he nods looking a little confused.

"You can stick around if you'd like, I don't mind; though I don't exactly know how long he may be." Says Kou's grandfather.

She smiles and softly shakes her head, "No thank you, we have some business of our own we need to attend to, and waiting around for Kou would get in the way of that at the moment, but it is urgent that he contact us as soon as he can so," she gestures to the paper and he takes it, reading mine and Rika's cell phone numbers on it along with our names. He nods and shows us out, waving as we drive off in the car, after a few minutes I turned to Rika.

"Why did we have to leave so suddenly, I don't feel right just leaving Kou to deal with this all by himself, I should be there with him saving Lillya." I say, getting more and more agitated at the situation.

"Eren, I understand your feelings of wanting to protect him while he is unable to do it himself right now, but I wasn't lying, we really do have our own things we have to take care of, my plan for example, even as we speak, our futures are being planned out for us, that includes our marriages." She pauses and glances down; her words seem to make it hard to continue.

"What do you mean? How do you know that?" I ask, turning in my seat to face her.

"Well I don't know for an absolute fact, but it's quite obvious something like this would be happening, even from birth our lives were planned out for us; even me, the first child who gets nothing, has a path set for her," Her lip quivers a little and she presses her hands to her eyes, "we will be separated Eren, I don't want that, even if I get married I know that man will not love me, if anything he'll hate me because he married someone who will give his family nothing!" She leans forward, burying her face in the frills of her dress.

"Then why would you be married off?!" I say raising my tone to everything she's saying, "She doesn't even have proof and she's already convinced." I think to myself.

Her shoulders begin to shake alittle from her crying, "because they can't keep me in that house forever, but they can't just kick me to the curb," she wipes her eyes and looks at me, "they have to pay the price for messing up the line of things, I'm a burden our family has to carry until the day I die of natural causes, I can't even be killed!!" She balls up her fists in frustration. Just as she's about to slam her hands down on her knees, I pull her close and hold her tightly, she growls and rages at first, angry at me for holding her down; but moments pass and she calms down, she makes little sound, nothing but the sound of her soft breathing and the occasional sniffle.

I sigh and finally speak again, "Rika my dear sister, I will protect you at all costs. I-"

I suddenly feel my heart throb, pounding harder and louder than usual, just like when I accepted my duty as Eren's Handler; I grip my shirt over my heart and squeeze, a sharp pain coursing through my body with every slow beat of my heart. Rika notices right away and calls out to me, but the sound of my own heart beating fills my ears and drowns out her every word. I gasp, trying to regulate my heart as the pounding continues on for what feels like eternity, suddenly my vision flashes once and my heart beat begins to regulate back to normal. I pant, slowly hearing my heavy breathing; Rika wipes the sweat that continued to drip from my forehead.

"W-What the hell happened, are you okay?" She asks with a voice so obviously worried, I notice her hands are shaking slightly and her eyes are red from her crying, she wipes my sweat away and I grab her hand and look into her eyes.

"Lillya has awoken!!"

Rika falls forward, collapsing into my arms.