Shingeki no Kyojin/進撃の巨人 You think you liked her?

"Pathetic, Eren."

Annie uttered with obvious condescension to Eren's rear end sticking up in the air while his shoulders and head lied buried halfway into the dirt as a result of having failed to dodge yet another one of her swift attacks, but before he'd let her enjoy her brief victory any longer, he was quickly on his feet again to charge at her and dodge her first swing which allowed him to grab a hold of her torso, but before he could do more, a leg that felt like it came out of nowhere kicked into his right leg with a force so strong he whimpered in agony and released his hold to cower in the temporary pain.

"That surprised me." Annie said, contrary to her words her voice and expression in a completely tranquil and dead-pan state. "You're getting a little faster, I suppose. I guess our training isn't completely for naught."

"Like hell it is..!" Eren whispered aggressively while hoisting himself back up, clenching his fists in a fighting stance while waiting for her to do the same.

"You just wait, Annie. I can read your technique more and more, it's really not that great." He uttered with a grin, feeling his blood boil by the sight of her hands being raised in response to his.

"Heh, is that so." Annie replied with what Eren swore looked like a tiny grin as well, before she in the blink of an eye had shoved her right fist into his face, to which Eren felt like half of his face was burning from the impact, but not without grabbing her arm into a lock hold and twisting her around, forcing her to twist his arms in return and throw him over her sholder, ending with them both having a lock hold on each other with their faces only a few inches apart. Other trainees had temporarily paused their own sessions by now, watching the two in excitedment for being the first time Annie had actually had to work a little for her victory. They were also thinking that the two must have been pissed off, when in actuality, that was far from the truth. The truth was that neither of them could have been more excited, both of them presenting such a thrilling challenge to the other, whether it was through the fighting technique or just the sheer determination. Unbeknowst to them, they had become each other's favorite partner in sparring for those reasons.

"You know, Eren…" Annie calmly said, in between their struggling holds, her gaze piercing his own as her eyes were just below his. "… you really shouldn't hold me this close."

"What?"

Eren's expression temporarily turned into a confused one just in time for Annie to have effortlessly kicked his legs away from the ground underneath him, and he once again found his eyes staring at the sky while hearing Annie's footsteps calmly stepping away from him. Jerking himself up in a sitting position and turning towards her, he shook his fist while angrily asking her what she meant.

"I said…" Annie stopped in her track, still with her back faced towards him. "You shouldn't hold me this close…. I might just end up…" she turned around. Before she could finish the sentence, Eren felt as if his heart stopped in his chest at the sight of tears streaming down her face, blood dripping from her chin and right hand.

"… _betraying you!"_

"…ren….. Eren?"

"…nngh…." Eren shook his head at the voice suddenly ringing in his ears, as if to chase it away, until it loudly repeated and he jerked out of his sleep, finding himself staring directly at Armin who was hovered over him with a concerned face.

"What the hell, Armin. Why are you waking me up?" Eren annoyingly said in a hoarse voice while wiping some of the tiredness from his eyes, upon realizing it was still night time.

"Sorry… it's just that…" Armin moved away to sit back down at the chair, to which Eren realized he was still in that single room to rest after his fight with the female titan… that was… Annie…

".. you were making pained faces all of a sudden so I figured you were having a nightmare. Don't get me wrong though, I've not been up all night to watch you, I was asleep up until half an hour ago when the rain outside woke me." Armin tried to assure Eren so not to make him feel like he was being babysitted. "Though I'm surprised I managed to fall asleep on a chair to begin with..."

"Well, you're awake now so you can go back to your own bed. I'm fine." Eren sighed while turning his back to Armin, making it clear he meant it.

"You won't tell me about the dream? I got curios." Armin sighed as well while getting up, making his way to the door before stopping in front of it with his hand on the handle when suddenly hearing Eren speak up.

"Armin… where are they keeping her?"

"Huh?" Armin turned around to give him a confused look.

"Her? As in…. Annie, you mean?"

Not recieving a response right away, Armin figured it was the right answer as he slipped his hand from the handle and turned himself towards Eren again.

"So the nightmare was about her? Did you dream about your titan fight? Though I have no idea what it means to become a titan, I can imagine it must give you nightmares…"

"No, it was…" Eren groaned while turning around and getting up in a sitting position, rubbing his head while trying to recall what he could of the dream.

"It was actually about me and her fighting… as humans. You know, during one of our training fights. I could have sworn it was just like what one of our real fights had been like. Except at the end…" Eren jolted as he suddenly remembered the last seconds of the dream before Armin had woke him.

"At the end… what?" Armin asked as Eren went silent, staring at his hands while recalling the image of her bloodied and most prominently, crying face. There was no doubt. It was the face she had had when he had torn her titan body apart, revealing her small, fragile body amidst the heaps of steamy, bloodied flesh.

He had felt it then and he felt it now. As a titan, he had wanted nothing more but to tear her own titan form apart and then kill her, the person inside. The person who had been responsible for so many of his comrades' deaths. He couldn't have cared less about their past. She was a monster, and deserved to die like one, just like any other titan. That was the absolute truth.

These thoughts has swirled through his titan form and driven his anger. Every inch of him had _ached_ to finish her off, tear away at her, make her feel all the pain she'd made his comrades feel, and then more. He had wanted to_ eat_ her. Make her die a dog's death like any titan victim ever had. That had been his protruding thoughts while straddling her defeated titan body, practically feeling drool dripping from his titan fangs as he grabbed the first lump of flesh and tore it apart, feeling his excitedness at the thought of eliminating her from this world growing by the second, if it was possible for it to have been even stronger.

Then he saw Annie, and these feelings had vanished in the blink of an eye.

What he was looking at was no monster. It was no titan.

It was a girl.

A crying girl.

It was…

"…_Annie_…" Eren had felt his lips forming the word, but no further than he had done so had a sharp blue light exploded beneath him and swallowed any vision of her, before his own body had suddenly been slashed out of his titan form by an unknown force. And that was all he remembered.

"Tsk…." Eren annoyingly gripped at his hand while trying to control the emotions suddenly welling up inside him. Feelings of anger and grief, mixed with denial. The latter was still there. It was still gnawing away in his mind. He had thought he'd discarded it as soon as he'd transformed in order to kill her, only for the image of her crying face to flash through his mind again and remind him of how quickly his murderous thoughts had drained away at the sight of the person inside.

Why? Why couldn't he accept that it was Annie? Why couldn't he come to terms with her and the female titan being one and the same? He'd seen it first-hand, hadn't he? She had transformed right in front of him. No… that wasn't true. He hadn't actually_ seen_ her. Mikasa had pulled him and Armin down the underground tunnel so quickly he'd only noticed the bright flash followed by heavy footsteps shaking the ground. Was that it? He hadn't directly seen her transform which was why a part of his unconscious mind was still telling him that Annie was innocent?

"Such bullshit…" he whispered, still staring down at his hands in his lap that were shaking at his competing emotions.

"Hey, Eren…"

He got shaken out of his thoughts by Armin, who was suddenly wearing a saddened expression while still standing by the door, facing him. Eren noticed that his whole demeanor changed somewhat, as he appeared nervous of whatever he was about to say.

"Mikasa said it too, although… obviously you were too preoccupied with other matters to consider it at the time… but…" Armin paused, drawing his breath while giving Eren what looked like a sympathizing smile before continuing: "… do you think that before you found out she was the female titan, you sorta… if even just a little… you liked her?"

"Hah?" Eren widened his eyes in response, not sure what Armin had just asked. If he liked her? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"I don't get what you're yapping about, Armin. Of… of course I _liked_ her. Even if she didn't speak much I still considered her a friend like everyone…."

"That's not it, silly." Armin interrupted him, still wearing that sympathizing smile which was starting to irritate Eren. What the hell was he getting at?

"I'm not talking about liking her as a friend. I'm talking about liking her as in… well… romantically." Armin said that last word slowly as he couldn't help but being nervous to Eren's reaction, raising his hands in a defensive notion before quickly adding "But again, I meant as in just a tiny bit."

"Eh?" Eren just stared in disbelief at Armin, feeling like he wanted to yell him out for dropping to such a conclusion and otherwise force such a ridiculous conversation on him, when in his mind, he suddenly felt rendered stunned as he unconsciously started to plough through his memories of Annie in response to the question.

The first time he'd directly spoken to her, thinking how indifferent and aloof she appeared, that first fight they'd shared at the encouragement of Reiner, and how she'd gracefully brought him to the ground within seconds. When he had caught an ever so slight change in her expression asking her about her father, and how he'd been like. How he noticed her acting like she didn't care for anyone, yet still often sat by Mina, sharing meals with her and looking particularly down after she had perished in a titan attack.

The way he had seen her smile for the first time when she asked him if he wanted to learn one of her moves. Her overall excitedness through performing her martial arts techniques, particularly in their training fights together, despite her attempts at hiding it.

Yes… when it came to the latter… only he had noticed it. The more they had been sparring together, the more he had known. The more he saw her enjoying herself. And, eventually, he realized… the more _he_ had been enjoying himself. Despite having his ass handed to him over and over, their fights had still been too much fun for him to move on to an easier partner. And that's where he was lost.

Why had he enjoyed sparring with Annie so much? Even when practically all he did was lose, he had still looked forward to their every fight. Maybe it was because he had slowly, yet surely been improving, giving her a slight more run for her money after a few weeks than he had done in the beginning? Was that it? The challenge she had presented? Or…

"_Maybe I can teach it to you?"_

No. That wasn't it at all. Eren felt like he just now realized it. The truth was… he had _liked _making Annie excited. He had _liked_ making her dead-pan, screw-the-world expression and overall demeanour change into a focused and lively one. He had _liked_ how he was one of the presumably few persons who could bring that out in her.

He had liked… making her smile.

"Um… anyways, to answer your intial question..." Armin decided to skip the topic, seeing how Eren looking like a confused mess was the only response he was gonna get out of him for the time being. "I think she's kept in one of the deepest underground dungeons beneath this place, guarded by Survey Corps guys. I doubt they're letting anyone in who isn't meant to guard her…"

"But still…" it was Eren's turn to interrupt Armin this time, and then give a surprising question.

"… you could make it happen, right?"

"Eh?" Similar to Eren's previous reaction, Armin only stared in disbelief at him for a few seconds before speaking up again. "You mean you… intend to see her?"

By now, Eren's expression had suddenly turned sullen, and Armin couldn't quite read what he was thinking. Knowing he was referring to his ability to find solutions however, he lowered his head a bit before responding.

"I guess… I could think of a way… But it's not a good idea, Eren. If they should catch you of all people wandering about where you're not allowed… and even more so, to see_ Annie_... well, they might question where your intentions lie again."

"I'll just have to avoid getting caught then, won't I?" Eren spoke up in an irritated voice again, looking directly at Armin this time. "Besides, I haven't given those assholes doubting me any reason to do so anyway, if anyone still does it's their fucking prob…."

"Well…" Armin interrupted him with a sweatdrop, so as to stop him from going off. "We might not have to make it more complicated than it is. I could just tell them we want to see her. I do believe they trust you enough for that, so long as you ask… Besides, they're Hange's guys, aren't they? That woman definitely doesn't have an issue with you, so if her guards should refuse we _could_ ask her instead."

Processing what Armin said, Eren figured it indeed could work, as well as admitting to himself that it would really be a bad idea for him to sneak around as if he had an agenda. One slip up in front of his peers and not much would take for the Wall Corps to get their hands on him.

"Although, since we're on the topic… why _do_ you want to see her?" Armin noticed Eren was growing weary with his questions, but for him to suggest to go and see Annie of all things was a too confusing, not to mention dangerous idea not to question. Unexpectedly however, Eren didn't respond in annoyance but kept a sullen expression while looking back down at his hands.

"I don't know, I guess… I just want to confirm something." It was all he could think of, but realizing it sounded conspicuous, he added "Besides, can't a guy just be curios? I didn't really get a close look on her after she encased herself in that crystal, it sounds too amazing to be true, in a way. It'd be…interesting to see it."

Hearing himself speak, he knew Armin was able to tell it was at best a half-lie, but by now the latter figured it wasn't any use questioning Eren any further when he clearly didn't quite know the answer himself, and pushing him even more now would just result in him getting more on Eren's bad side. Plus, Armin had clearly heard that first line.

"I get it, Eren... I guess I'm kinda curios too…" he replied quietly, wondering if Eren could tell he was lying back. "That's settled then, we'll try and go there tomorrow. But for now… we should probably get a few more hours of sleep before dawn."

"Yeah…" Eren just sighed in response, slumping down onto his side with his back facing Armin again, though not without mumbling "Thanks".

"Well, don't thank me until we've actually gained permission to see her." Armin said with a nervous laugh, before reaching for the door knob and making his way out, letting out a gentle "Good night, Eren" as he did. Not receiving a response right away, he figured Eren was so tired he was half-asleep already, not being any use for him to wait for any.

Hearing the door close with a loud creak, Eren was staring into the wall with wide opened eyes however, finding himself completely engulfed in the thoughts that continued to stir in his mind. He wanted to confirm something… that much was true. But what was it? Somehow, he felt how he knew why, but at the same time, the knowledge only left him _more_ confused and kept clawing away at his emotions that wouldn't quit their turmoil.

What he wanted to know was… if he could look at Annie and feel the hatred he _should_ have felt that time. If he could get over his stupid denial and acknowledge that the girl he was looking at _was_ the female titan. If he could look at her properly and feel the same desire to kill her human form as he had done with her titan one.

If he could prove that Armin was crazy…

"…_you think you liked her?"_

"Fuck that shit…" he whispered aggressively to himself. Just because he'd liked making her smile… did that mean he'd been in_ love_ with her?

Like hell it did. He'd been regularly sparring with her for nearly three years, wouldn't he have known during that time if he'd felt more for her than simply friendship? He wasn't that oblivious, was he?

"… _you shouldn't hold me this close…"_

Those words the Annie in his dream had spoken came to his mind all of a sudden, startling him as to what the meaning of them had really been. If he shouldn't have held her that close… in what way? It couldn't be… his own unconscious mind was…

"Ugh…" Thinking about it all was starting to give him a headache, and he figured he should force himself into shelving it for now so he could get those few hours of sleep before the sun would dawn. Finally letting sleep take over his mind, he managed to think somewhere in the back of his head before completely succumbing to his tiredness that things would turn out okay the sooner he could see her and indeed confirm what he knew was certain.

The tapping of Eren and Armin's shoes echoed through the dark brick walls tunnelling through the deep underground of the Military Police's building. Eren could feel goosebumps prickling his skin at the little to no warmth existing there, and noticed Armin shivering a little as well beneath their survey corps cloaks. Then again, he couldn't tell if it was really the chilly air tensing them up, or the uncertainty around what they were doing.

Having passed a few soldiers staring at them already, Eren felt his annoyance build at how, even if they didn't stop them, their gazes were still disapprovingly piercing his own.

"Don't mind it, Eren." Armin whispered, not having to look at Eren to know he was close to snapping and yell one of them out. "We should be happy they're at least letting us through. The last thing we need is draw attention more than we're already doing."

"I know that." Eren annoyingly whispered in return, trying his best to keep his gaze forward without giving a nasty glare back at any soldier they passed.

"By the way, Armin…" he said, deciding to distract himself by bringing up something he'd wondered for the past five minutes.

"Why didn't Mikasa come with us?"

Armin's eyes widened a little at the question, and he sweatdropped before quietly replying "Oh she… told me she was busy. Some chores she was asked to do."

"Really? That's too bad then." Eren answered in a curios tone, making Armin feel his chest twinch a little upon thinking back to when he had told Mikasa about what they were doing, and if she would join them. At first, her reaction to hearing it was Eren's idea had left her shocked, before she'd suddenly turned expressionless and had just looked at Armin with dull eyes while answering she had better things to do, before turning around and walking away. Armin could have sworn he saw a hurt look in her eyes as she had done however, and he had recognized that blank expression to have been almost the same as the one she'd had when she'd thought Eren was dead.

"_She knows." _Armin thought, thinking how unfair the whole thing was for her. He knew Mikasa had always had feelings for Eren, and he couldn't imagine how it must be like to be that devoted to someone for as long as she had, having been as close to him as family, only for him to suddenly… _supposedly_ fall for someone else instead, and within a shorter time frame. What's worse, that other girl actually being _evil…_

"_Well, it's not like Eren knew that…"_ Armin scoffed to himself. _"That's probably what he can't figure out…"_

"Is it here?" Armin was shook out of his thoughts by Eren, realizing they had reached the end of the tunnel that bordered into a larger room lit up by several torches lining the walls. A total of four cell rooms were visible, but only one of them had the bars down with two armed guards standing on either side of the opening, slowly removing their rifles from their backs and preparing to cock them upon spotting the two teens.

"Wait." Armin stopped and turned to Eren just as they entered the room, before they would reach within hearing distance of the guards.

"You wait here, I'll go talk to them. We'll appear less threatening that way."

Eren didn't protest, but nodded slightly in agreement. Right now, he felt how sweat was prickling at his palm as those lingering emotions from last night had started to crawl their way through his body again and preoccupied his mind from focusing on anything Armin told him. Only it was twice as bad this time. His entire body felt like it was shaking, now that he was actually here.

Annie was in that cell, just a few feet away. He was about to see her again. And the thought made him feel like a nervous child.

This was it. He was about to know. Know if he was really so pathetic that he let personal feelings cloud his knowledge of the truth. To know if what he had felt when seeing Annie's crying face had rendered him motionless because of the surprise, and nothing else.

…It had to be it.

"_Petra, Oluo, Eld, Gunther…" _

Images of the brutally murdered Survey squad veterans flashed through his mind, and somehow, he felt how it made him both angry, but at the same time, relieved. Relieved, that the memory _did _piss him off, and made him feel like he was truly an idiot for this entire thing, needing to see Annie to know if he could acknowledge who she really was. As if he needed to see her to know. Regardless of anything he should have felt for her in the past… that was gone now. Knowing she was the female titan, there was no way he would hold any affectionate feelings for her of any kind, be it romantic or friendship. Anything she'd ever done to him had been a farce, so it wasn't like she had cared anything for him either…

"Eren?" Jolting at Armin suddenly appearing in front of him as he'd been too caught up in his thoughts, Eren looked at him with a sweatdrop, his mind suddenly cleared as he awaited the conclusion.

"We're in luck. They know Hange likes and trusts you, so they've agreed to let us in, though only for five minutes."

"Fine by me." Eren replied in an indifferent tone, feeling confident now that he knew it wasn't gonna matter when he saw her.

Taking the few steps it took to reach the bars slowly being pulled open by one of the guards, Eren only had to take one glance at the glittering, egg-shaped crystal behind it with a female form frozen in the middle to know that everything he'd just thought had been for nothing.

"Ann…" without thinking, the letters slipped from his mouth, and the next steps he took made him feel like his legs would collapse at the tragic sight in front of him. That was all it seemed like. She was there, motionless beneath several centimetres of rock hard crystal, her eyes closed as if she was sleeping, with what Eren swore looked like the remains of her tears glittering down her cheeks, having frozen in place where they'd been wept.

Walking the few feet it took to reach the crystal, Eren felt how he had no choice but acknowledge how he'd just been stripped of any resentful feeling he'd held so confidently just seconds before. How could he have had them?

"It's… not her…" he felt himself silently saying. "It's… not…"

The female titan. What had she been like again? She was cruel, vicious, and heartless. She had next to no care for human life. Her icy death glare was the last thing you saw before she'd brutally kill you without blinking.

And Annie? Annie was the girl he'd been sparring with for three years. She was the girl who may have acted indifferent, but who he knew cared for people deep down, who came alive through performing martial arts and had a certain glimmer to her eyes when he'd tell her about his ideals and thoughts for the future, and in turn when telling him about her father. She was the girl whose extremely rare smile was too contagious not to smile back at and would stick in your memory, should you be so lucky to have her show it to you.

And she had showed it to Eren.

"_Oh…"_

A lump hit his chest with the realization.

Indeed, she would hardly ever smile at anyone.

Indeed, she had smiled at him.

…She _had_ cared about him.

"_Eren, what do you plan to do after graduation?"_

"Eh?"

Eren had turned to Annie sitting on the ground next to him during the five minute break, her arms wrapped around her knees with her head resting on top of them, and for a second Eren was taken aback at how fragile her expression had suddenly turned, her entire posture reminding more of an insecure girl than the ruthless, cold opponent he usually knew her as. It got to the point he had to focus on answering her question rather than stare at the unusual sight.

"You mean as in what branch I'll be choosing? Naturally, the Survey corps! I've decided that since the very first day I started training! …Why you ask?"

"Fool…" Annie replied with a sigh, brushing some bangs from her forehead. "Regardless how skilled you become… even the best soldiers have been killed in the Survey Corps expeditions. What makes you think you'll be any different?"

Eren eyed her in curiosity for this sudden talkative side of her, while at the same time feeling his buttons pushed when she was asking him these questions not much different than what his mother had.

"Because to rise up and keep fighting no matter the losses are the only choice we have! If we let the titans scare us into submission we're all dead anyway. As long as we keep fighting… humanity's dignity won't be completely lost." Eren said, clenching his fist while the image of his mother brutally killed by a titan flashed through his mind, and he were about to lose his cool for a second until he turned towards Annie again and felt how the immediate rage got whisked away as he saw her staring at him with that glimmer in her eyes he would occasionally catch, and he felt how he unconsciously wanted to savour the sight for how rare they were, and for how different it made Annie look. The glimmer was gone in an instant however as her expression reverted back to her signature cold one, before she got up on her feet and eyed the other trainees with a glare Eren swore had daggers to it.

"Your courage is admirable, Jaeger. But take it from me: don't join the Survey Corps. …You never know what kind of titan you'll be facing."

"… _what kind of titan you'll be facing."_

No. He hadn't known. But, he realized, _she_ had. Whatever reason she had been sent as a spy for, it involved kidnapping a person within the walls given the ability to become a titan shifter like herself. She had _known_ that whenever that person appeared, she would have to murder anyone standing in the way for her to go through with it. She had _known _that Eren being part of the Survey Corps would be one of those trying to stop her.

But then, coincidentally, it turned out _he_ was the one she'd been sent to kidnap.

"… you were really…a lousy liar, Annie…"

Hearing the words slip under his breath, Eren felt how he had to force himself to look directly at her face, to look at those glittering particles beneath her eyes, her eyebrows slightly furrowed as if her last conscious moment of sorrow had been forever etched onto her face.

The realization made Eren's heart twinge. He had liked making her smile… and now she was…perhaps forever indeed… frozen with this sorrowful face.

…Armin was right.

At least… he was right that Eren had felt _something _more for her than any of his other peers. Whether this was actually _love… _he couldn't tell. He had no idea what it meant to be in love, after all. What he felt for Annie… had been _special._ He had respected her more than anyone else. He had admired her more than anyone else. It was like… she had unknowingly become his best friend in training along with being his mentor. Whether all this meant he had been in love with her however, felt too complicated to consider. As he was now, the feeling he was left with was that… it didn't matter. His feelings for her… were _strong_, regardless of their nature. And maybe… had she not turned out a traitor but remained a comrade… they would have continued to grow. Grown to the point where he wouldn't have a doubt.

He found himself picturing it.

"_What are you lagging behind for, Annie?" _

Eren had playfully called out, seeing Annie stopping at the top of a hill some twenty feet away, ignored by all the others trainees hastily scurrying by to get a good seat in the dining hall. Not receiving a respond however, he groaned in disappointment, knowing he'd be losing his seat this way, but decided to check up on why Annie had stopped to stare off into the distance.

"Oy, Annie? Did you hear me? We hould hurry already or all the best seats gets taken. You know you'll have to listen to me complain again if we end up far away from the soup caldron. Wanna risk it?" he teasingly remarked while reaching her, though not really expecting an immediate reply, he looked ahead at where her gaze was resting at, realizing she was simply staring at the sunset.

"You're so annoying…" she suddenly scoffed, tilting her head at him with a hint of a smile, a smile Eren again felt he unconsciously savoured while raising an eyebrow at her.

"Are you… watching the sunset?"

"So what if I am…" she said with a sigh "… my dad used to watch it often. I never figured why. I guess… it's only something you understand when you get older. He was… watching it because it's…. beautiful, I guess?"

Eren felt like he had to hold back a snort at the weirdness of the moment.

Annie Leonhart was admiring the sunset.

He turned his head and was about to ask her if someone by any miracle had managed to deal a blow to her head during training that day when he found himself halting. Without realizing it, she had delivered that last line while giving him a questioning stare, as if she was genuinely asking him. Only he felt like he couldn't answer, for the last remaining rays of the setting sun were gently resting on her pale face, enhancing the blue in her eyes and the gold of her hair. And for a second, he had realized… _she _was beautiful.

"Never mind." she sighed again, realizing she wasn't getting any response from him besides a dumb stare. "Let's head to the dining hall so I won't have to listen to your bitching, like you said."

Eren remembered how he had stared after her for several seconds before finally snapping out of it and catching up to her. And he hadn't really dwelt much on it afterwards. But now, it was one of many moments coming back to him. All of them making him feel like it would have been perfectly natural for him to end up in love with her, whether that's what he was actually feeling at the moment or not…

She was amazing, after all.

Without realizing it, he had lifted his hand, feeling an urge to reach out and touch the crystal. He was about to, his fingers only inches from gracing the part closest to her face, overwhelmed by all his realizations of just how much he had cared for her_…. _ perhaps even loved her.

But…

His fingers dropped, and turned his hand into a fist instead, as Eren's gaze finally lowered from looking at her to the ground instead.

Although he didn't _feel_ like she was the female titan… he _knew_ she was. And the returning memories of his murdered comrades by her hand still made him sick.

"_Knowing you, Annie… I want to believe you feel guilt for what you did, and whatever reason you did it for, it came by the orders of someone else. … But taking innocent lives… is unforgivable no matter what."_

He swallowed, suppressing a sudden choking sensation in his throat.

"_And for what you did…I could never love you now."_

_..._

"Eren…"

Eren startled at the sudden sound of Armin's voice, realizing their five minutes were about to run out.

"I'll be right there." he sullenly replied. Slowly lifting his gaze to let it rest on Annie one final time, he felt himself wondering if she'd ever come out from there, and no matter what, considering the possibility against it was hard. No matter what, seeing her smile… at least one more time… would have been nice.

"I'm sorry…" he said, slowly drawing his breath. "I'm sorry I won't ever be able to spar with you again."

...And then, if it had ever been possible for two unconscious minds to communicate, Eren could have sworn that when he turned around to walk out of there, a thought like an unfamiliar voice had graced his mind, silently saying:

"_Me too."_


End file.
