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A lover asked his beloved,
Do you love yourself more
Than you love me?
The beloved replied,
I have died to myself
And I live for you.
- Rumi.
It’s all so plain. So very painfully plain that Eren can feel himself go crazy with every day that he has to wake up and stare at the same ceiling over and over again.
It’s his second time this year.
And it’s only April.
Each time seems longer than the last. And each time is worse than the last, no matter where he ends up.
Even with his eyes closed, he can still see the painful white of the ceiling. So bare, so barren. It’s not any different if he asks to switch rooms. It’s all the same ceilings. And the same layouts and old faded pictures in oddly coloured square frames. Asking for different rooms makes no difference. It’s all the same to him. Asking to remove whatever petty decoration that they have makes it even worse, makes him feel even worse. It all ends up being emptier.
They tell him to bring things of his own to personalise, make things less bleary, less empty. Armin does it for him, on his occasional visits after classes are done. He brings over little things he knows Eren values more than everyday things that he needs. This time Eren plans to keep his stay short, so Armin only brings him the one thing that he essentially needs to keep himself occupied. He holds onto it much like the golden thread of life, the ones they talk about in Greek myths. He’s afraid that if he lets it go, it will break, and in turn, his own life would be severed, cut short.
Nothing he has can fill the emptiness that is always his hospital room. Nothing he still has that is. What he does have only rips whatever emptiness he feels into a larger hole, gaping, haunting, looming over him. Including his golden lifeline that takes form in a worn-down red scarf the colour of blood.
He’s a cursed man.
The door opens, and in steps a familiar face. One he’s hoping to never see again every time he ends up in this place, and yet still does, and is seeing currently.
“You grew your hair out! I thought you said you wanted to cut it the last time I saw you.”
“Guess my mind changed.”
They sigh, admonition showing through their light tone like the sun on a clear sky, “I see you haven’t been taking care of yourself.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I was, you know.”
They laugh, fixing their glasses as they rest a clipboard of what Eren presumes is his medical records on their lap. They seem to be uneasy. And it’s a habit of theirs that Eren’s learned; they stall on the important things when they have bad news.
“Come on, Doctor Zoe. Tell me the bad news already.”
They lean back into the chair, and Eren leans against the back of his raised bed. The IV drip is steady, feeding his veins with the necessary liquids. This time it's multivitamins. He’s close to malnourished, the nurse had said when she switched his empty saline bag with this weird yellow coloured one. The arm that’s receiving the drip feels heavy, heavier than the rest of his body.
“Me being here to see you and not some random doctor is bad news already, Eren.”
He knows. Of course, he knows. Most times it’s just the usual scare of him being negligent towards his health, general physicians coming in to tell him he needs to take care of himself better. When asked about his medical history by such doctors, Eren lies. He always does. All to avoid lengthening his stay and meeting Doctor Zoe. But alas, once every few times Doctor Zoe takes it upon themself to take care of Eren throughout his stay. And what Doctor Zoe always has to tell Eren is never good. Not once. Not ever.
He wipes a dry hand over his dryer face. Another thing he hates about being in the hospital. The air’s so unpleasantly dry his lips crack and bleed if he doesn’t force himself to drink two whole jugs of water every single damned day he’s staying. Maybe that’s how they force him to take care of himself, even if it’s the bare minimum.
He wonders if there is a control feature for the room’s humidity.
“It’s getting worse, huh?” he asks simply, knowing the answer already.
The doctor only nods, solemn. Then they let the information take weight, sinking further into whatever depths that it can reach inside Eren. It fades away, somewhere inside Eren. Such news have grown to be superficial for Eren. He expected it really, especially the moment the pain struck him square in the chest and floored him at the main academic compound back on campus. It’s the first time he’s knocked out cold from an episode.
He’s surprised he’s not dead. Not yet.
“It’s both an oddity and a breakthrough. That you’re sick how you are. You’re nineteen, right?”
Eren nods, chuckling, but it’s not out of amusement, “You’re supposed to know that.”
The doctor laughs a little, sighs, “You’re so young. And yet here you are, sick and getting sicker from mourning. Was it your mother?”
“I was nine when she passed. Wrong med prescriptions. Did alright with that, was too young to grieve this bad anyways.”
“My condolences. How about your father?”
“He left when mom started getting sick, early on. Died from a heart attack when I was eleven, I think. Or was I twelve? Couldn’t give more of a shit.”
They winced, “Harsh. So who is it that’s made you so sick you’ve been seeing me of all people since you were seventeen?”
He pauses for a moment, thinking in the silence the doctor’s left him in. It’s funny now that the doctor pointed it out. He could’ve ruined his brain, of all things, put himself in the care of a psychiatrist or psychologist or whatever. Hell, he could’ve gone mad with whatever he’s feeling and made a home in an asylum but no. He was close to doing so, back in his first year of experiencing whatever this is.
Eren Jaeger’s always different. In a sense that even his doctor asks him why he’s sick how he is, when he could have fallen sick in other more relevant ways.
Doctor Hange Zoe is a cardiologist.
A heart doctor.
Instead of his head or any other part of him, he messed up his heart.
Literally messed it up.
It’s what extreme and prolonged grief do to a heart. It breaks the mound of muscle. Actually breaks it. Doctor Zoe mentioned it to him the first time he was brought to their attention. The veins and arteries inside the heart are kept in shape and maintained with these little strings of tissue, like beams holding a bridge up. In his case, he’s broken most of them, and ruined the structure of his heart. It’s not in the shape it’s supposed to be. It’s deformed, the doctor told him, the first time that they met two years ago. The deformation is getting worse, they told him again, repeatedly, all the times after.
He’s expecting the same thing today, maybe worded differently to ease his worries. It never really does.
And it’s a repetitive cycle, the same scene, over and over again. Only maybe a few times the doctor decides to crack a joke or two, to make him talk. When he doesn’t, or refuses to, they call in someone who can make him talk; an actual psychiatrist. He’s relieved he’s not sick in the head. He’d rather have Doctor Zoe crack shit jokes every time they meet than face a stoic, level headed psychiatrist with a notebook and a cunning eye for prying open all his worst secrets.
“Who was it that passed? That you’re hurting so much still?”
Eren looks the doctor’s way, and for a brief moment lets them see into him. Lets them see how much of a wreck he is, how broken he is. How much his heart is a mirror to the deformed being that he’s grown—or rather, reduced himself to.
He recalls a memory. The memory. The one and only.
Something jabs at his chest again, and he feels his palms grow clammy, the image taking form in the vast cavern of his mind. It’s an empty stage, and the lights finally come on again after an intermission. The doctor requests for a replay, and though they’re not able to see it, Eren rewinds regardless, presses play.
They were walking home from school, it was a Friday, if he remembers correctly.
She was talking about her plans—-their plans—-for Saturday and Sunday. It wasn’t anything special, they were just going to do homework together then maybe slip in some studying. She said something about wanting him to be able to go to the same university as her after they graduate.
“I’ll help you any way I can,” she beamed, skipping lightly as they continued walking along the sidewalk. Her fingers were dainty, slender in between his own rougher ones. She was wearing a skirt that day, her favourite red checkered one and paired with a heather grey jumper. She had her heavy boots on, and yet her steps were light, airy almost.
He remembered that he was thinking of how beautiful she was, how her hair’s gotten longer since she last cut it. He wondered if she was going to cut it in a different style the next time she’ll be cutting it. He thought of whatever the possibilities of her next hairstyle could be.
It was a nice day, the sun shining mildly over them through sparse clouds. The sky was a bright blue, the birds were chirping. She was smiling. She was smiling so widely his gut twisted.
She’s beautiful.
She’s never not beautiful. She could be a sobbing, weeping mess and drenched in rain on his windowsill after one of her father’s drunk episodes and he’d still think she’s beautiful.
That day she was even more beautiful than she usually was. It’s because she was smiling so brightly he could see how perfectly aligned her teeth were, how her smile reached her eyes they became crinkled at the corners, how her eyes were so full of hope for the future.
Eren always loved how she’s so hopeful. So, so hopeful despite all the shit that befell her in life.
He wondered what angel was given mortal form in Mikasa Ackerman that she was still so bright and heavenly. Hell, she could tell him she was a goddess condemned to live life as a human and he would have believed her. She could have told him the bluntest, most obvious fallacies and he would consider them the undeniable truth.
“Want to grab some cake before we head home?”
They’d stopped by an intersection, the cake store was opposite them. If he said no, they wouldn’t have had to cross the road, only continued walking along the sidewalk to their left. But—
“Sure, as long as you let me pay for yours this time.”
He smiled, seeing her smile. He wasn’t big on smiling, never was, never will be, but with her, he smiled so much sometimes his cheeks hurt. There was this weird swollen feeling in his chest whenever he laid eyes on her, and his stomach felt like it did flips whenever he saw her smiling at him. Also, he felt as if he was floating.
Maybe she really was a goddess. With her, he felt as if he had wings. He felt like he could fly whenever they were together.
She flashed him another heart-stopping smile, “Alright, I’ll wait here.”
He nodded. He can never defy her. She was definitely a goddess. “I’ll be back,” he said, and let go of her hand. It felt like letting go of his very lifeline. He crossed the street to get whatever they usually did. A cheesecake for him, a fruit-topped vanilla frosted sponge cake for her.
Five minutes.
He spent five short minutes in that shop.
Somehow something in him screamed, begging him to take even less time because he wasn’t supposed to leave her side for too long. He wasn’t supposed to leave her side at all.
But he insisted that it was just his paranoia speaking. And his attachment issues. Also his overbearing adoration for her. He wondered why she wasn’t sick of him yet, if he was honest. If he was her, he’d leave himself. It was another reason why she was a blessing, the single proof of beauty and kindness and all that was good in the world in the midst of how mercilessly cruel life was.
He searched for her the moment the shop’s door closed behind him. And with every passing second that his eyes tried to find deep, dark grey irises and black hair, his pulse climbed.
One second.
Two.
Three.
There. There she was. Right where he left her.
He sighed, feeling his body uncoil from the building panic.
Their eyes met, and she waved, lighting up like a bursting star somewhere in the neverending cosmos. Bright, full of life. Her smile felt like a lightning strike in an otherwise silent sky and a hearth’s fire warming a home all at once.
He was about to cross the road to meet her, but she beat him to it, the empty road prompting her to merrily skip her way to him.
Eren had made many mistakes all his life. Most of them, unforgivable. But this one, this one that’s staring him straight in the eyes was the biggest regret of his life.
They said that he should never blame himself, that it was the driver’s and driver’s only for being intoxicated, but Eren never saw him being persecuted. Eren never saw him having a penalty put on him for the atrocity that he committed, for the pain he’d caused her, and still causing Eren.
He barely remembers how it happened. The image was horrifying, and he could only recall whatever happened in slow motion. It was torturous, really. Still is every single time he tries to recall it. The image is distorted, like an old satellite television bothered with static.
He heard himself calling her, shouting her name—he sounded scratchy, there was a ring in his ears—when he saw the speeding car turn the corner. He felt the bag of cakes drop from his hand, forgotten and abandoned, onto the sidewalk. He felt the soles of his shoes squeak against the tarmac as he broke into a useless sprint. Useless. Useless.
“Too late,” whatever greater force that had control of the universe said.
He had made three steps, three steps onto the tarmac when the car spun into the lane Mikasa was on, met with her so harshly he could see the force from how painfully her body was bent. Their eyes were on each other then, when the car hit Mikasa’s side and shattered most of her ribs and spine.
A hit and run.
She fell to the ground, bloodied and broken. The car drove away, still mindless, still out there to this day.
The passing by pedestrians could only scream or gasp in horror when they saw how it started, how it happened, how it ended.
Eren remembered a lot of blood.
Too much blood.
And though one of the people screeched at him to not lay a finger on Mikasa, afraid that he might make things worse for her, he did what he wanted. He did what he needed to. Whatever that was happening was the worst thing that could happen already.
“Don’t leave me,” he begged, pulling her close enough to feel her fading heartbeat against his own.
“Don’t leave me, please.”
Eren Jaeger never cried, all his life.
For Mikasa Ackerman, he did.
For her, he would have done absolutely anything and everything.
Take his life, he wanted to say. Take everything that he has, save her. Save her, save her, save her. Let her live, please, please, please, please—
He forgot how bitter tears tasted, forgot how every drop fell with an agonizing heave from his burning chest. He felt like he was being thrown into a fire and shredded apart, all at once. His knees were bloody from when he skidded on the tarmac to cradle her, but his scrapes were covered with her blood. So were his clothes, and his arms and his face.
A shaky hand had placed itself on his cheek, barely there, light as a feather.
He leaned into it, pressed his own hand onto it.
Stay, please, please, please—
“Shhhh—”
“Mikasa.”
“Don’t cry.”
“Mikasa.”
“Not for me.”
“Mikasa.”
Someone somewhere said an ambulance was on its way. Another stranger said the police were approaching as well. He kept his eyes on hers, willed them open with his own, willed her to stay, willed her to stay alive. It was as if he could. He must. Heavens above, he must.
“Mikasa.”
“Don’t cry.”
“Don’t leave.”
“I’m not. “
“You promised. ”
“I’ll keep it.”
“Mikasa.”
“Eren.”
“I—”
Her hand fell. Eren felt the imprint of her blood on the side of his face.
Eren’s heart had been wrenched out of his body the very moment her heartbeat failed to pulse against his skin. His strength left him all at once, with her. He wished his lifeforce left him too, with her. She fell slack against him, and he limped against her. He wished he died with her. That was what losing her did to him. He died the very second she did.
The only difference was that he woke up some days later after refusing to. He didn’t want to wake up in a world void of her. He might as well have died alongside her. He had lived for her. What was the point of living if she wasn’t alive as well?
He still wishes that would happen. That he had died when she did.
The lights flicker out, all the sounds that he heard that day echoed off into silence. The stage is empty again, the curtains drawn, and yet the crowd’s aching screams still pierces at him, rings in his ears. The voices are all his own, from every time he revisited the same painful tragedy when Mikasa Ackerman left him for good, when she so gracefully promised him she would never.
How dare she.
But that was the thing with goddesses and angels, they were too good and pure for the world despite how cruel they are with their promises and oaths. That’s why they belong in heaven, far and out of reach from feeble mortals and their even more fragile souls and mortality.
He faces the doctor, hot tears trailing down his face after spending so much time being indifferent to his own feelings. The last time he spilt these tears was the very day that Mikasa Ackerman left him.
The doctor had a slight look of shock on their features.
Eren can’t blame them. Even he’s surprised that he can still cry. He says, simple, the simplest truth he always came to and will ever come to admit.
“The one I love most.”