[ Standing, sitting – Maruki will do whatever Eren does. There is something percolating inside him, but it isn't close to boiling over yet, and until it does he doesn't have the strength to do anything else. Eren sinks down, and so does he. Eren makes a space for him to collapse in, and so he does.

They want us to suffer, and they do, but can that really be it? ]

He's– there's almost a year separating what I last remember and what he does. He's lived beyond my time, even if he doesn't know me, and I just think–

[ Bile rises, swift and acrid. Maruki swallows it down, strangles out a little noise as he sits up straight. His arms around Eren's back fall loose, and he looks at his best friend face to face. There's nothing but abject terror in his wide eyes. ]

I just think, what if he lived through a future I had something to do with? What if I accidentally erased his memory of me too? [ It wouldn't be the first time. Eren knows that. He's panicked. ] It could be my fault. It could be.