[ Glasses gone, his eyesight even blurrier than it would be otherwise. Maruki tugs the sleeve of his sweater over the heel of his palm to swipe it beneath both eyes and looks at Eren, squinting to try to sharpen his features.

He isn't a crier like Eren is. Was. There are no loud, gasping sobs to be had here. When Maruki does allow himself to cry, it's a quiet, slow thing. His eyes well up just enough for tears to get caught on his lashes when he blinks; they don't spill. ]

I know you lost a lot of people here that you cared deeply for, but that was the first time it happened for me.

[ His eyes drift from Eren's face to the half-ruined office around them, fuzzy in his poor vision. Here, of all places, being made to try to explain how grief feels to the person who has been mired in it for so much of his young life. ]

I've never had a best friend before.

[ Rumi, maybe, when they were in high school, but it so quickly became something else that it hardly counted. Since then, nothing, no one. ]

I felt alone.

[ He wasn't. He knows that he wasn't. That doesn't change how it felt. ]