ASSIMILATE

began loving you.

This wasn't a "make-a-choice" situation. That day you were forced to accept it, whether you agreed with it or not. Your input was irrelevant, Eren had already made his decision so what you did was adapt to the change.

You didn't make time for studying with Eren that day or even playing video games with him that weekend.

One particular night, you were all back to regular classes and you were sitting in your room finishing some assignments when you felt someone staring at you.

"Sorry! You hate when I do that but I was just checking on you at first!" Mikasa tossed her hands up and turned around to leave the entrance to your room and go back into hers.

"You don't have to. I told you I'm fine," you shrugged and turned your head to stop typing on your laptop.

"Last time you said that you let your bookshelf fall and you would leave your room for days. I'm just making sure because you seem oddly put together about the whole thing.

"Well, there's nothing I can do about it, and this time Erwin even agreed it's best for Eren. Better to just focus on the positives, don't you think?"

"Yeah, you're right...sorry. Night y/n," she shut the door behind her after you smiled at her.

Everything before that, was a lie. You were keeping it together best you could but since when did "best" necessarily mean good? You were constantly worried about how he was doing.

You started to pick at the skin on your thumb, rubbing your middle fingernail against the pad of your thumb constantly. The feeling soothed this constant ticking you were feeling, as if you were waiting for something to happen.

Recently, you noticed Eren never really stopped smoking weed even when you expressed your concern with how much he was consuming. It wasn't good at all to result in smoking as a way of coping and you realize now that he never hid his struggling, you just picked up on it once and he blew it out of proportion on purpose so you wouldn't ask him about it again.

He was always two fucking steps ahead of you and you hated it. That's why he made it an argument when you brought up how worried you were about his smoking. Right after that, the two of you went on a break and you're assuming that wasn't a part of his plan originally but you took way too long to catch on to it.

Was it too late? Was he going to do something stupid? Is that why he pushed you away as much as possible?

You needed answers but you were asking for the impossible. When you got over-fixated on things it was hard to get out of them, you didn't want to drain yourself with your paranoia so instead, you started flipping through flashcards.

EREN POV:

"Uh..." I felt Zeke like my arm as I was rolled on my side all bundled up in the blanket of the bed.

"Are you alive?" He asked and poked me again.

"Huh?" I groaned and adjusted myself in the wrap of blankets.

"What did you have for dinner yesterday?" He asked and I squinted at him.

"I don't know-"

"Exactly. You can't remember because all you do is smoke and sleep. Go eat something," he nudged me again but I refused, I was too tired and high to get up anyway.

"I'll get to it tomorrow,"

"I knew you'd say that. We had this exact conversation two days ago and you haven't done shit, I was just seeing if you would remember and you clearly don't so go eat," he demanded, a little bit more annoyingly.

"Have you even visited Carla's grave? You didn't go to the funeral-"

"Why're you pestering me like a parent. Lay off me,"