COMRADES • Eren Jaeger

CHAPTER 11: Childhood

LEVI SAT AGAINST THE WOODEN COUNTER, paying no attention to the shards of broken wineglasses and the spilt alcohol that reeked his sense of smell. Instead, he directed it to the man speaking to him from behind the bar.

"Ain't that the damnedest thing! I smell a filthy rat coming this bar," a familiar voice drawled. "Come out, you little rodent—found ya!"

The old wooden doors swung open to reveal the gravelly man with shoulder-length brown hair and sideburns, a thin beard along his jawline, and piercing gray eyes bordered by crow's feet. Tall and slim, he sustained an athletic build well into his middle-age years. While the frozen patrons managed to exert a few flinches, the Survey Corps captain remained coolheaded. Another familiar face.

"The law has come to exterminate the vermin!" howled Kenny Ackerman, brandishing guns and a maniacal grin. "Bang! Bang!"

When nobody spoke, the Ackerman's lip curled downwards in a sneer.

"The hell?! Ain't you here?!"

"Right here, Kenny," Levi responded gruffly. "It's been a while. Never thought you'd still be alive. What happened to slaughtering the Military Police? Now you're one of them?"

"Adults do plenty of things a kid like you can't understand—oops, my bad," Ackerman crowed. "You're just so tiny, it's hard to believe you're older now. I've been looking forward to seeing you in action. Never thought all those tricks I taught you would be helping you out like this."

"Yeah, it's helped us out plenty."

"Us? You mean you and your little brat?" Kenny said. "Quick little soldier that girl is. If only you hadn't influenced her to join up your little Scouting Legion, then maybe she and I could have been best buddies here in the Military Police. Or better yet, she'd never have joined the military at all and would be living a more, ah—peaceful life."

"Don't worry," Levi deadpanned. "I'm sure she's just as eager to meet you as you are to her."

"I saw that girl, Levi. Apparently the rumors about the kid bein' a real beauty are true. She's out takin' down my squad like a true maniac. Did you teach her that? I bet she was just like you when you were little. Well, still are."

"Is that so? You've met Y/N?" mused the captain, quietly reaching for a rifle nearby. "And what exactly, pray tell, do they want with her?"

"Hell if I know, but I bet that she was part of the reason ya chose to join the Survey Corps," laughed Kenny, his gruff voice echoing around the room. "We had no choice but to fight every day to survive in that garbage dump underground. It took all we had each day to keep livin'."

"We fared rather well," Levi retorted. Kenny waved him off with an eyeroll.

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "I dunno what on earth made you think it was a good idea to take in a little girl like her back then. It certainly wasn't out of the goodness of your own pure heart, that's for sure. What made you want to take her under your wing? She ain't your daughter or your little sister."

Levi scoffed. "Maybe it's the same reason why you took me in. Didn't see fit in seeing another kid's corpse in the mud."

"I bet both of ya had a tough time trying to survive down there, and when ya found out how big the world really was, it must have hurt like hell," said Kenny, cocking his head to the side. "But something saved us all from that dark noose of depression — we'd found something we wanted to do. It's that simple."

Fighters, soldiers, murderers. Easy industries.

"It's simple, but the truth is that the only thing that made our lives fulfilling was finding hobbies."