[She reaches out to him...? Eren struggles to understand. It shouldn't be so surprising, maybe. What is there to understand? They're friends. They've been closer than this before.

[He isn't fit for that sort of thing anymore. Every sin that he thought he carried at sixteen has become real. He is the monster he and so many others feared he would become. Luz will never know this. He's already decided that.

[It feels like deception. That's fine. Eren deceives. That doesn't mean he likes it. It's disquieting, seeing how many people have grieved him, how many want to celebrate his return. It makes a moment like this - a touch from a friend - feel sinister, like a prey animal walking into a fanged maw.

[He doesn't step away. There's that, if nothing else. He can't quite look at her.]

Don't apologize. Everything I've undergone was intended that way. [It's his fault.

[All of it.]

[There's a moment of quiet. His right hand flexes at his side.]

I've lived my life through to its end now.

So, I...[His voice momentarily trails off, as if losing his train of thought.

[He has to keep it nailed down. Straightens and catches his friend's eyes.]

So, I won't be leaving again until it's my choice. Just as before.

Consider my absence a mere interruption. [Something needed doing.]