Chapter Text
When she was five Mikasa loved to help with the gardening. She would use a small spade, or her fingers, digging into the loamy soil. The grass would tickle her bare feet, her knees, as she crouched over and gently placed the seeds her mom passed her into the holes she had so diligently made. A gentle swipe of her hand buried them - just like her mom had showed her. She dug deeper holes for the herbs they transplanted and she was allowed to place those too as long as she agreed to be very careful. She loved everything about it from the dirt under her nails to the soft sweet scent of growing things and the freshness to the air in the aftermath of rain. Her mom smiled at her as she danced around the backyard covered in dirt when they were finished.
“You’re going to make some boy very happy one day,” her mother said.
Mikasa’s face crumpled with disgust. Everyone knew boys had cooties after all.
***
When she was ten Mikasa loved to run. She would easily out-distance her friends, bare feet slapping on the sun-warmed concrete. With her hair flowing behind her and a smile in her eyes, she ran. She’d collapse into a chair in the kitchen at home panting from her exertions and her mom would bring her a glass of juice. Mikasa loved these quiet moments where she could just sit and listen to her mom talk. Usually they’d talk about the garden or school but sometimes her mom would talk about the boy she would marry one day and Mikasa would wrinkle her nose and roll her eyes and change the subject.
***
When she was fifteen Mikasa loved fighting. There was nothing that compared to the warm burn of muscle exhaustion. There was nothing better than the endorphin rush of besting a willing opponent. She trained her body at the gym the way she trained her mind at school and focused on turning herself into the best version of herself that she could be. Mikasa loved fighting but she hated confrontation so conversations with her mom had become difficult of late. Whenever possible she would remove herself from the situation, go to her room and listen to music for hours at a time as though the notes could tune out her mother’s insistence on what she considered an outdated tradition.
“Mikasa, I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Really! Your father and I had an arranged marraige and it worked for us. I’m telling you, this will be good for you!”
“He’s twice my age.”
“That’s only because you’re still young. I’m not asking you to marry him tomorrow.”
“Mom. He. Is. Thirty.”
“I know fifteen years seems like a long time when you’re young but trust me, when you’re twenty it won’t matter as much.”
“No! You don’t understand do you? I don’t want to marry some guy twice my age who I’ve never even met!”
“Mikasa,” her mother's voice was accompanied by a faint sigh, “You’re being unreasonable.”
“No you are!”
Mikasa was turning even as her mother gasped in indignation.
“Mikasa Ackerman! Don’t you take that tone with me! Look at me when I’m speaking to you!”
Mikasa ignored her mother’s raised voice and closed herself up in her room knowing she was in for it later but taking a small pride in her childish rebellion anyway.
When a knock came on her door a couple hours later it wasn’t her mom who came in after her grudging acquiescence but her dad. She planted her back a little more firmly against her headboard as she took in the tired lines on her father’s face.
“Mikasa, honey, you know your mother and I just want what’s best for you right?”
She let her eyes slide away from her father's and stared a hole into the wall just past his shoulder.
His sigh was nearly inaudible as he pulled out her desk chair and sank heavily into it, “Sorry, I didn’t come here to give you a lecture.”
“Yes you did,” she said, her eyes snapping back to her father full of reproach.
Her father smiled faintly, “Okay, yes, I did.”
Mikasa huffed and looked away again.
“The issue here is less your disagreement about our plans for your future and more about how disrespectful you were with your mom. You can’t treat her that way.”
“But you guys can treat me whatever way you want?”
“That’s not what I said but to a certain degree, yes. We’re the parents and you’re the child Mikasa. You might not always like it but that’s just how things work.”
“I don’t care what you say I’m not marrying some old dude.”
Her father chuckled, “Okay. I’ll drop it for now. Please think about it though. It would make your mother and me very happy.”
Mikasa kept staring at the wall long after her father had left, gently closing the door behind him.
***
When she was twenty Mikasa finally gave in to her mother’s badgering.
“Fine. I’ll meet him. But don’t expect me to like it.”
“Oh, Mikasa, you have no idea how happy this makes me. You’re making the right decision, truly.”
Mikasa stared impassively at her mother. She didn’t want this but if it would appease her mom she could at least meet the guy and reject him to his face. It wasn’t like she even had time for a relationship, let alone a marriage. She had school and work and training. Somehow she managed to fit time with her friends and family in the cracks. Sleep was the only other thing she made time for and she wasn’t about to give up any of those things for some guy in his thirties that her parents wanted her to marry.
She told her mother so and felt a faint hint of remorse as her mother's face fell slightly.
“Mikasa,” she hesitated, looking down and tucking her hair behind her ear, before continuing, “Mikasa you do know that we won’t insist on you marrying him if you don’t like him right? You do have a say in the matter. You’re not a child anymore so I trust you to make the right decisions.”
“Mom.”
“No, don’t interrupt, I’m not finished.”
Mikasa pressed her lips together at her mom’s sharp tone but let her continue.
“We won’t insist if you don’t like him but I want you to give it a fair chance. I know that you aren’t fond of the idea of arranged marriages but you do know that they can be every bit as successful as the marriages you’re more used to. You can’t know that it won’t work unless you at least put some effort in. I’m not asking you to fall in love but I’m asking that you at least consider the possibility that this could be a good thing for you. Despite what you might think of us your father and I just want you to be happy,” her mom took a deep breath and shot her a tremulous smile, “Okay?”
Mikasa took a steadying breath of her own before meeting her mother’s eyes, “Yeah. Okay.”