Dissolve

Loss of a Chance

Saying goodbye wasn't something I was truly accustomed too.

Sure my mom was dying in the other room of my apartment but she wasn't dead yet.

Armin was quite literal, always there. Our goodbyes consisted of, 'bye, I'll see you tomorrow.'

I never had to say goodbye to my father, for reasons I was too young to remember and he never gave anyone that choice. 'Fucking bastard.'

Mikasa, I had been to enraged with at the time to feel any remorse over her departure, though I was beginning to, unwillingly. It hadn't felt like a goodbye to me.

And those were quite simply, the people I ever interacted with in my life. So why was it so damn painful to be standing alone watching the plane rise into the air, taking the one person who understood me with it?

Rhetorical question.

One the other had, before Levi's adieu, I'm 99.9% sure that he made a public show of trying to eat my face to make Armin's face turn into a fucking tomato. Not that I'm complaining.

"Don't miss me too much, kid." His breathed words still lingered on my lips.

I was going to miss him. It was fucking shit.

Riding in Armin's car now, I knew he could sense I was irritable. "How bout we round up the gang and go eat pizza?" He suggested.

I watched the blurred skyscrapers pass by and decided not to object to the idea. It wasn't like I had much else to do.

Armin got to calling some of our closer classmates, and they all settled on bowling and pizza. I stayed silent, my finger kept twitching to my phone, the urge to text Levi becoming overwhelming. I hoped he knows I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to annoy the fuck out of him with calls and texts. I very well planned to do so, but texting him all of thirty minutes after his departure seemed a bit extreme. But who was I to care?

I grunted when the car jerked to a stop. "Gotta work better on parking without fucking killing, Armin." I muttered.

A flick to my cheek was not expected and was not appreciated.

"Scold me later, Jaeger. Get your moping ass out the car." Armin chided before slamming his door shut.

I followed after him. It'd been awhile since I'd been bowling. Maybe middle school? Shit, I felt old. I even forgot you had to put on those sliding shoes too. I always had a tendency to slip and fall on my ass cause I'd get too close to the lane when I was a thirteen. Tendency usually meant purposely. I liked slipping and sliding. I liked moving when I was a kid.

We met Krista and Ymir, along with Sasha and Connie at the register. As Armin and I drew closer I heard a sharp intake of breath that had my eyes snapping to Armin. His eyes were focused ahead, to what I scrutinized Jean, laughing his ass off at something someone said. That someone, however, was Marco.

Marco?

I turned my head to Armin who was making his damndest to focus all his energy on paying the cashier. I instantly felt the urge to shove Jean into the wall. What the hell was he thinking, bringing his ex in front of Armin?

Armin could detect my sense of flinging Jean to the fucking moon, setting a hand on my shoulder; he didn't want a scene. I sighed, figuring Armin could take care of his dense boyfriend. When the idiot spotted us he gestured to a table where we could all sit. We followed after Connie and Sasha as Ymir and Krista took a seat in the middle of the booth.

The tension in Armin's arms were there but for the most part, he was relatively good at covering up his emotions. It was an impressive feat to me, considering I'd be livid at Jean if I was in Armin's place.