Shorter Than Me

4 Ecyn

He's leaving? Where is he going? For how long? Questions float through my mind as I perfect my cleaning. I'm cleaning the dining hall today. Cleaning isn't very bad, just tedious with Captain Levi as my overseer. Just like I've gotten used to doing, I check, re-check, triple-check, and check everything again.

***

"So you're going to be training with me?" Briine asks. We're sitting under a tree.

"I guess. Just for the next few days."

"Do you know where Captain Levi is going?"

"No. He didn't tell me." I shrug and pick at the grass.

"He won't tell anyone."

We sit in silence for a while, arms almost touching. We've been best friends ever since we met at age six. I've never liked him in a romantic way, but he knows me so well, and I him, that marriage could actually be a future us. We're still too young to think about it, but I still do sometimes.

"Remember the first time I told you I wanted to join the military?" I ask.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes.

"No, just..." I didn't mean for him to apologize. When he laughed, I tried to attack him but he was stronger than me. I did get really mad, though, and I stopped talking to him for two weeks.

"Yes, I remember. You just looked too much like an innocent little kid to join the military."

"And you didn't?" He had wanted to be with the Scouts since before I met him.

"I couldn't picture you wearing the 3DMG and the uniform."

"Can you now?" I gesture to myself and the clothes I'm wearing.

"Of course." He smiles.

"Remember the games we played?" All pretty much anyone played were games of killing titans. Children could be seen jumping and running around, voicing the sounds of the maneuver gear.

"Yes." He smiles and stares into the distance, drowning in memories of countless hours filled with swinging sticks around, slaying titan after titan.

Sometimes, I wish I could go back to those times. Life hit hard and real when Wall Maria was broken through and the innocence of youth was lost. Children could be as skilled as Captain Levi Ackerman, as determined as Eren Jaeger, as smart as Armin Arlert, whatever and whoever they wanted. But now, time has hit reality where there are limits, tragedies, and death.