Holding Everything

Chapter 34: Sleep

Lillya

I slowly open my eyes, feeling the crusted eye boogers cracking as I squint and rub my eyes, my head throbs and I look around. The last thing I remember was Kou's grandfather fixing my arm after fixing Eren's wounds. After the initial shock he did the same as Eren, injected something into me to help me sleep without pain, and it worked. I let out a sigh and I can almost feel the nasty morning breathe peal my chapped lips apart.

"Damnet," I grumble to myself, I begin to turn slightly but the throbbing pain from my arm stops me before I can make any progress, I hear footsteps and within seconds Rika is by my side helping me up, being careful not to apply any pressure to my arm.

"Don't move too much, it'll heal within a week, maybe less as long as you don't stress it even a little." She says while grabbing a cloth and dampening it in a bowl of water. "We got worried, soon after you passed out you suddenly got a fever, who knew Handlers could still get sick." She chuckles awkwardly as if trying all she can to lighten the mood and play off how scared she was.

"How's Eren and Kou?" I ask, deciding not to press her on how she's doing.

"Eren, well he's still knocked out, it's weird, because your wound was worse, but he had more than you as far as broken bones go." She says with a slight smirk.

"Well its no surprise, he went up against that freak Kou won't leave alone, any idea why he's so intrigued by her?" She shrugs her shoulders while wiping my neck down. "Think he loves her?"

She suddenly pauses, and without looking at me directly, she smiles and shakes her head, "no way, impossible, she's-just no. She's the enemy after all, there's no way he'd have feelings for her plus she, she doesn't even know Kou." As she stumbles over her words, the worry and disbelief are obvious in her tone, it pisses me off.

"Something like this shouldn't throw you off," I can't help but wonder why she's so worried about Kou liking that freak. I clench my teeth and force myself to calm down; my train of thought is interrupted by Eren stirring in his sleep. A moment later he sighs and I can tell he's waking up; Rika sets down the cloth and goes to his side.

"Damn, how long was I out?" He asks while keeping his eyes shut, squeezing them as if to loosen the hardened eye-boogers.

"Almost the whole day, its 3 in the afternoon now, considering we got here soon after the sunrise it's pretty late." She says while slowly helping him up to a sitting position.

"Alright, and Kou?" He says after settling into a sitting position. The room goes silent, Rika keeps her head down, the grandfather walks in and leans against the doorframe with his shoulder and his arms crossed.

"The bleeding's stopped, he stable, but cold and losing color, and," he pauses, scratching the scruff on his chin before speaking again, "you failed didn't you?" my chest feels a slight pain from his words, by the sudden twitch on Eren's eye I can tell he felt it too. "Well I'll let you know now, the more you fail, the more it'll affect Kou; he's the Natural Handler so it will affect him if the Black Path succeeds even once on its victims."

"What does it do exactly?" I ask, knowing that for us it's just simple defeat and anger, but the only physical pain is when we fight a Runner.

"How can I say this, it's almost like he loses a piece of himself," He says vaguely; walking away without another word, I decide not to press on the matter.

Rika finishes wiping down Eren and I with warm water and wet-wipes, carefully avoiding our wounds and helping us change into some clean clothes the grandfather had. We lie back down and after we're given more medicine we drift off to sleep, Eren first and then me. As I slowly lose consciousness, I hear Rika suddenly ask the grandfather right before I hear an answer.

"So tell me all you learned about Mercury."