Chapter Text
“Mikasa!”
She recognizes his voice immediately, though it’s muffled by the sputtering of his old car. She stops in place, and as she turns, Eren pulls up next to her, his arm resting on the rolled down window of the drivers’ side door. Their eyes meet, and Mikasa’s heart pumps harder in her chest.
“Eren. Hey.” Her voice sounds breathless in her own ears.
Eren’s hair is pulled back in a messy knot, and he’s wearing some old, ripped tee from a band she doesn’t recognize. With his eyes on her, she pulls at the sleeves of her cardigan, looking down and feeling disheveled, suddenly self-conscious of the light pink bustier dress and white sneakers she put on this morning.
“You want a ride to school?” he says and nods his head over to his passenger seat.
“Sure.” Mikasa responds. She darts across the front of his car, pink dress fluttering across the bottoms of her thighs. Once she gets in and buckles herself into the seat, Eren takes off down the road, his car roaring just as it hits the speed limit.
“What have you been up to? I haven’t seen you in a few weeks,” Eren starts, his eyes flickering over to her.
“Oh, ah… just… school stuff, you know? I guess it’s been busy lately.” Mikasa pushes a piece of hair behind her ear and casts a sideways glance over to him, catching the angle of his jaw. She looks away when she feels the squeeze in her chest again and decides that it’s safer to focus on the smooth edges of her fingernails.
“Right… you must be busy with your full schedule of AP classes and varsity tennis and all that honor society bullshit,” he responds, half exasperated, half teasing, his mouth pressed into a grin.
A blush spreads across her cheeks because it’s true that she has been busy with all those things, and she feels embarrassed over how uncool it sounds coming from his mouth, and she’s not sure how Eren even knows any of that about her in the first place.
The last time they spoke was brief, and it was just Eren at her front door delivering something from his mom to hers. All their interactions nowadays are brief because she always finds herself too nervous or embarrassed to keep up a conversation with him after the summer between freshman and sophomore year when he had gone away for soccer camp and come back 8 inches taller, toned and sinewy all over, surrounded by rumors of his lost virginity to an older girl.
She can’t blame all the distance between them now entirely on Eren’s good looks, though. Even before that summer, their friendship had been waning. At the start of high school, Mikasa began to pull away from their daily meetings with him and Armin because she wanted to fit in and spend more time with her other female friends. Eren, on the other hand, kept getting into all kinds of trouble that she would hear about, but that he avoided talking about when she asked.
The hours they spent together daily turned into interspersed weekend meetings and then dwindled into curt greetings and small waves as they passed one another by in the hallway. Eren’s body count was likely greater than the number of times they’ve held a conversation over the past two years.
“Sorry,” she apologizes as she glances at him and then back down at her hands, unsure of what else to say. She’s uncomfortably aware of her every nerve ending right now, the way his leather seats are sticking to the backs of her knees, the sound of her exhalations, the strands of hair that she can’t keep out of her face.
Eren lets out a light chuckle as he turns the car around a corner. “Mik, I’m just teasing you.”
“Oh. Sorry.” She inwardly cringes at the way her voice squeaks. She’s trying to push more words out, but her brain can’t come up with any, and she’s trying to remember what in the world her and Eren used to talk about all day when they were kids.
“Well, my life has been going great, too, thanks for asking.” His tone is sarcastic, though he’s still smiling. “ Don’t apologize again .” He adds in, right as Mikasa’s mouth starts to form another “S” sound. She presses her lips together and peaks over at him again to see him already looking at her.
Their eyes meet for one quiet moment. Then an easy laughter breaks through the awkward, and Mikasa’s shaking her head, feeling silly and ridiculous for being so weird.
When their laughter dies down, she feels herself smiling. “You don’t need to remind me how boring my life is, okay? What’s been going on with you?” she asks, but she already knows.
He started seeing some pretty sophomore girl from the year below them after breaking up with his previous girlfriend last month. He still plays soccer on the field across from their cul-de-sac on the weekends, but he hangs out with Floch Forster and their little posse nearly every day after school. He’s taken up smoking sometime in the past few months, and when she goes to the bathroom during fourth period, she sees him standing behind the portables near the fences where the hall monitors don’t go, a lit cigarette in his mouth with the same group of guys when she knows he definitely has Eldian History and not independent study time.
“I’ve been the same. Nothing too exciting, you know?” They come to a stop at an intersection, and they’re nearly there already. Mikasa hums in agreement as she watches other students from their school cross the street.
“So uh… Are you gonna go to prom this year?” Eren asks, his eyes trained on the road as the light in front of them turns green. Mikasa lets out a light giggle through her nose.
“That’s two months away, Eren. And no one’s gonna ask me anyway, so I don’t see why I would go. Are you gonna ask… Louise?” Mikasa wonders out loud, remembering the name of the sophomore girl.
Eren’s head snaps over to her and his expression seems surprised. “Why do you think I would ask Louise?”
“Um…“ Mikasa bites the inside of her lip, wondering if she accidentally exposed too much what she’s noticed and heard about him. Eren’s love life was a common and hot topic of gossip in all social circles, but she’s never heard anything about it directly from him. “Aren’t you guys, like, dating now?”
“Is that what people are saying?” Eren’s brows scrunch together. They’re pulling into the parking lot, but it’s still at least 10 minutes before the first bell. “I’m not dating Louise. Like, not at all. I’m not dating anyone right now, actually.”
“I didn’t mean to assume. I just heard…”
“She confessed to me last week, and I turned her down.”
“Oh.”
Mikasa feels an uncomfortable heat in her stomach, a slurry of guilt and cringe at her own words. Another apology starts bubbling up out of her throat again when Eren says,
“People are dumb and weird. Not you. I mean, don’t listen to them.” Eren shifts the gear into park, and Mikasa nods, gathering her school bag into her lap and reaching for the door handle.
“Thanks for the ride, Eren,” she replies softly. The door squeaks open, and just as she’s about to step out, she hears him again.
“Wait! Mikasa… we should hang out more. I mean like, if you want. If it’s not weird. It’s been a while, you know?” His hands are still on the steering wheel, and his face looks… open.
“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.” Mikasa smiles, nodding at him. “See you later, Eren.”
“I’ll text you!” he yells after her when she steps out and closes the car door.
-
In 4th period, Eren texts her. It comes as a surprise, and Mikasa half thought he had been joking when he suggested hanging out with her again. He asks her whether she’s free today, and she is, but she takes ten minutes just to breathe before she can reply.
Why does Eren suddenly want to hang out now? What are they going to do? What are they going to talk about? Should they invite Armin?
In the background of her thoughts, she can hear Dr. Hange’s spirited lecture on biology, but even the teacher’s excitement can’t pull her out of her own head right now.
Eren hadn’t mentioned Armin this morning, and now when she thinks about it, she can’t remember the last time the three of them hung out together despite the fact that she sees Armin in class every day. She replies,
Yea! Should we invite Armin? :)
His response buzzes her phone almost immediately.
nah, hes probably busy with annie
A wash of confusion runs over her. Annie… Leonhart? The new transfer student from Liberio Academy? What could Armin possibly be doing with her? Mikasa shakes her head free of the disjointed idea and decides to ask Eren about it later. She tilts her head down to look under the desk as she types out a response.
What do you wanna do later?
Wait for me at my car after school.
Jean’s knee knocks into Mikasa’s from under the table, and Mikasa looks up and over to him, surprised. Just as she looks up, Dr. Hange starts over to their side of the room.
“Miss Ackerman, did you hear what I asked?” The teacher looks at her over the rim of their glasses. “Can you define the three types of cell transportation for me?”
“Ah…” Mikasa’s eyes go wide with the realization that she hadn’t been listening at all to today’s lecture.
“Simple diffusion, facilitated diffusion, and active transport, Dr. Hange,” Jean responds in her place.
Dr. Hange glances between Jean and Mikasa, both red in the face for different reasons. “Very good, Miss Ackerman .”
When the teacher continues on with the lecture, Mikasa shoots a grateful look over to Jean and mouths thank you , which he responds to by looking away and rubbing the back of his neck.
-
At the end of the school day, Mikasa stands next to the filth coating Eren’s passenger door with her school binder wrapped tightly to her chest for no good reason other than to have something to do with her hands. Her last class is near the exit, so she watches as students spill from the main doors of the building.
It’s just Eren, she repeats to herself. The same Eren she used to hold hands with on their walk to school in the first grade. The same Eren she used to stick band-aids on after he came back from recess scraped and bloody. The same Eren who played dress-up barbie with her before she had any other friends. The same Eren who’s lived down the street from her for over a decade.
But finally, when she sees him push past the exit doors, backpack hung over one shoulder and tangled in a group of people who all seem much cooler and more popular than she is, she gulps down the memories of who he was before.
She sees him notice her, and he gives her a three-finger wave from the hand gripping his backpack strap before turning back to say goodbye to his friends. She holds her binder tighter to her chest as she watches him. Nothing about the boy 20 feet in front of her feels familiar, from his long hair and his broad chest to the girls surrounding him, batting their long lashes and smacking their pretty, glossy lips in his direction.
Mikasa thinks she should have put on some lip gloss in the bathroom before coming out to wait for him, but it would be too embarrassing to pull it out now.
He extracts himself from the group with handshakes and fist bumps. His smile is bright as he walks up to her, pulling her into a full-bodied hug that she can only half reciprocate with the binder in her arms. The press of his torso is enough to intoxicate her, the warmth of him seeping through her skin. Her face is right at the crook of his neck, and he smells like the woods and smoke.
When he pulls away, she notices him glance over his shoulder again where the crowd of people are, but his shoulder obscures her view of what exactly he’s looking at.
“You ready?” he asks, as he steps forward to turn his key into her passenger side door, unlocking and opening it for her.
“Yep.” She nods and gets in.
-
They pull up at an ice cream shop five minutes later, and Mikasa can’t control the grin that breaks across her face.
“Pixis’ Ice Cream Parlor? We haven’t been here together in years,” she says, reminiscing over the pink and white swirls and blue snowflakes pasted on the storefront window.
The store is down a few blocks from where they live, and it hasn’t changed at all in the years since their moms used to walk them down there together on warm Sunday afternoons.
Eren smiles back at her, his canines catching on his lower lip. “Like I said, we haven’t seen each other in a while.”
They make their way into the store and stand in front of the glass screen with all the specialty ice cream flavors laid out in freezer tubs before them.
“Are you gonna try any? I already know what I want,” Eren says, glancing down at her. Standing side-by-side with him reminds her of how tall he is now. She remembers when their heads would barely reach the bottom of the glass, and they would have to tip-toe to gaze at the rainbow of ice cream flavors.
“I’m just gonna get my usual,” Mikasa replies as the worker in a red apron walks over to them.
“What can I get started for you two?” The girl behind the counter asks.
“I’ll have a double scoop of the triple chocolate on a waffle cone, and she’ll get a single scoop of salted caramel in a sugar cone. Please and thank you.” Eren shoots the girl a smile, and Mikasa can see the way she freezes at how handsome he is.
After a moment too long of the girl staring at Eren, Mikasa coughs lightly into her own shoulder, and the other girl jolts back to reality. She glances between the two of them and nods.
“Oh, right. Double scoop of triple chocolate and single of salted caramel. Got it.”
Eren pays for both of them, and they decide to sit on the bench outside to enjoy the spring air. Immediately, he starts biting into his cone with his teeth, the chocolate dripping over his hands and smearing across the sides of his mouth.
Mikasa giggles onto the spoon pressed to her tongue and grabs a napkin from the stack in her lap to hand to him.
“How do you still eat ice cream the same way at 7 and 17?” she asks, smiling, and Eren grabs the napkin from her and balls it up in his fist.
“Tastes better like that,” he responds, taking another big bite from his cone. This time, he rubs the crumpled up napkin over his mouth before going in again.
They sit there on the bench, quietly eating and not speaking, letting the sun warm the pavement into orange tones. When they’ve both finished their ice cream, Mikasa gathers their trash to throw away.
When she comes to sit back down on the bench, Eren has his arms folded over his chest and his face is pensive.
“Hey, Mik? Why aren’t we friends anymore?” He keeps staring ahead as he says this. His question startles her as much as his tone does, and a pang shoots through her body at the suggestion that Eren doesn’t categorize her as his friend.
“What do you mean? Of course we’re still friends, Eren,” she responds, though she’s not sure of it either.
“We’re not friends like we used to be.”
Mikasa takes in a breath and tries to decide what Eren is expecting her to say. It’s true that they’re not friends like they used to be, but isn’t it obvious why they’re not? It’s different now. They’re grown up now. They can’t spend all their time jumping off rocks and climbing trees and watching mindless TV together like they used to.
“We just… don’t hang out as much. That’s all.” Mikasa shrugs and tries to put on her most convincing smile to reassure him, but the turn of his gaze cuts through her.
“I wanna hang out with you more,” he states. His tone is gentle, but it feels like a command. She thinks if he did want to start jumping off rocks, climbing trees, and watching gross amounts of TV with her again then she would do that, too, because he wanted it.
“Okay.”
-
Over the next few weeks, they do start hanging out more. At first, Mikasa is unsure of how they’ll do it, if Eren will want to get ice cream and stare at an empty parking lot for an hour and if she’ll feel as strange and awkward about it every time.
But it doesn’t happen that way. Eren tells her he’ll take her to school the next day when he drops her off, and then he starts picking her up from her house on the way to school everyday. On those rides, they talk about their classes, about the weather, about nothing, really. He sends her texts throughout the day to see what she’s up to and if she’ll be free after school. Most days, she has volunteer events or tennis practice, so she isn’t free immediately after, but some days, Eren waits for her.
On those days, they go to the park together, and she catches up on reading for AP literature while Eren distracts her by sticking leaves in her hair or ranting about how fucked up the structure of their society is. Or they go over to his house and his mom bakes her favorite snickerdoodle cookies. Mikasa asks to watch scary movies together because despite how cute and sweet she seems on the outside, she’s actually obsessed with horror and cultish themes. (Eren pretends he isn’t affected, but she catches him gasping at the jump scares and just pretends she doesn’t notice.) Or he teaches her how to play whatever combat/shooting video game he’s currently on, and sometimes she actually plays it better than him.
Throughout all the days they spend together, Mikasa never mentions Armin despite the little pebble of guilt she feels in her gut over excluding their old friend. She’s not sure why, but she knows it would be different if Armin was with them, and she’s become strangely possessive about the time she gets to be with Eren.
They don’t see each other around much during school because their schedules are different, and their friend groups have very little overlap, but in the moments between classes when they can catch a glimpse of one another, he always gives her that same smile and three finger wave.
Mikasa finds herself anticipating those few seconds the entire morning, making sure to reapply her lip gloss before walking through the halls. Then around fourth period, she finds herself anticipating the buzz on her phone, and then when she hears the buzz, she hopes that he’ll tell her that he’ll wait around to drive her home that day.
But some days, he tells her he’ll be hanging out with his other friends instead, and she knows it shouldn’t gnaw at her insides so much knowing that he’ll be around other prettier, curvier, funnier, more well-dressed girls. But it does, and those days, she uses every ounce of her mental energy to focus on whatever schoolwork she has. She once finished an entire two weeks worth of assignments in advance and realized it was a mistake when she had nothing else to occupy her mind but Eren.
Mikasa’s walking to her last class on one of those days that Eren tells her he won’t be waiting up for her when she hears them.
“Eren’s been hanging out with that Asian girl lately.”
At the mention of Eren, Mikasa slows down to eavesdrop on the two girls’ conversation. She doesn’t know them personally, but she recognizes them from the group of friends Eren usually hangs out with at school.
“Mizuko or whatever, right?”
“Mhm. The other day, Rico told me she saw them get ice cream together at her work, and he paid for her.” One of the girls snorts and waves her hand like she’s brushing off what her friend just said.
“It’s whatever. I bet he’ll just fuck her and dump her like he does with everyone else.”
While the two girls burst into laughter, knocking into one another’s shoulders, Mikasa takes in a gasp at their words.
Mikasa’s face heats up at the idea of her and Eren having sex or Eren having sex with anyone at all. Her stomach twists inside her, and she pushes past them to rush down the hall. Even in the distance, their hushed voices still catch her ears.
“Oh shit, was that her? You think she heard us?”
-
Mikasa’s backpack clunks as it hits the floor, and she drops into her seat. She can feel wetness swelling in her eyes, but she squints to keep the tears from falling. The chair next to her scrapes across the floor as Sasha arrives at her seat, and Mikasa turns away from her.
“Miki, you would not believe the lunch I had today. My mom only packed me one bag of potato chips with my meal. Can you believe that?! I might as well die of starvation.”
Mikasa hums a response, still turned away from her friend, pretending to rifle through her backpack. When she blinks, a few drops land at the side of her feet, and she’s quick to wipe at her eyes before straightening up in her seat.
“There was something else I wanted to tell you, but I’m completely blanking right now…” Sasha continues, tapping at her chin.
Mikasa avoids looking directly at her friend, knowing that she’ll make a scene if she’s caught crying. Instead, she lets a few steadying breaths calm her while she focuses on writing her name over and over again.
Mikasa
Mikasa
M i k a s a
Mizuko
She scribbles over the stupid name on her notebook. Does she look like a Mizuko? She shakes her head. She doesn’t even think that’s a real Hizurian name.
The late bell rings, and all the other students find their seats, chatting amongst one another while the teacher is setting up to start class. She looks up to see Jean and Armin sitting in the front row, and they turn back to give her and Sasha a wave, which the two girls return.
“Hey, will you come to my track meet today after school?” Sasha leans over and gives her a pouty look. “Jean and Armin are coming to support me.”
Mikasa looks over and really smiles then. “Of course, I’ll go, Sasha. I wouldn’t miss it.”
Her friend beams back at her, and the teacher starts calling for their attention. Mikasa shakes her head, clearing her thoughts of anything that doesn’t have to do with mathematics or excitement for Sasha’s track meet.
-
At the end of class, Sasha waves goodbye to her and rushes to the locker rooms to get changed and ready. Mikasa approaches Jean and Armin, still sitting in their seats and chatting animatedly about how to answer the challenge question the teacher posted for their homework.
“Hey Mikasa!” Armin says, when he sees her. “What did you get for the problem today?”
She giggles and looks over to Jean, who’s probably red in the face from arguing with Armin about whose answer is correct.
“Armin, I don’t do the challenge problems," she replies, and she gives him a soft look when he pouts at her. “You guys are going to the track meet today, right? Can we go together?”
They agree to go with her, and she waits for them to pack up their stuff. They all walk out of the building toward the field. The sun is beating down on them today, and it’s a reminder that their few weeks of warm spring are about to transition into summer and that the middle of the semester is transitioning to the end of the year when all the big events are coming up.
“Mikasa, are you going to prom this year?” Jean asks. Now that it’s just over a month away, the entire student population is buzzing with conversation and whispers about the dance and who’s going to ask who.
“I don’t think anyone’s gonna ask me, so probably not,” she responds, nonchalantly.
Jean and Armin exchange a look, and she wonders vaguely whether Jean and Armin will be going to prom this year or if they’re planning on asking anyone. Despite that she and Jean have half their classes together and are involved in all the same extracurriculars, she’s never seen him look too interested in any girls.
Maybe Jean and Armin could take each other to prom. That would be cute, she thinks.
“You never know, Mikasa. Maybe someone will surprise you,” Armin says, smiling, uncharacteristically picking on her. She laughs in response, shaking her head.
Mostly, she doesn’t feel too sad about the prospect of not going to prom. She imagines that she’d be the type of girl who sits at the table watching all her friends dance like in the movies. And then at the end, her friends pull her to the dance floor, and she has a fun time, regardless of not having a date. But she still has next year for that scene to play out, anyway.
She’s not sure whether Historia or Sasha will be going this year, though she can’t imagine that Historia would be lacking in promposals. Sasha might go just to eat and drink and dance, always down for a fun time. Without her permission, her mind conjures up an image of Eren, hair slicked back and in a tux, placing a pretty flower corsage on some ridiculously gorgeous girl who isn’t her.
They come up onto the bleachers and file into a row somewhere in the middle. Mikasa sits in between Jean and Armin and listens passively as the two boys talk back and forth about which runners they think will win awards or set new record times for their school. The meet is small and informal, just between their school, Paradis High, and Liberio Academy. The campuses are a short drive apart, so students from either school are filing into the light crowd while the runners are doing their stretches and warming up on the track.
After walking all the way to the field in the afternoon heat, she can feel the start of sweat pooling under her arms, so she pulls off her sweater to reveal her cami underneath and lays it down on her lap over her skirt.
“How do you think Annie’s gonna hold up against her old friends, Armin?” Jean asks with a smirk.
Immediately, Armin’s face heats up, and he presses his lips together, eyes directed toward a small, blonde figure in the distance. “She’s been training really hard, so I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Mikasa’s head tilts. She remembers back a few weeks ago when Eren mentioned Armin would be too busy with Annie to spend time with them, but she had forgotten to ask for more details.
“Is there something going on between you and Annie, Armin?” Mikasa chimes in.
“Huh? Me and Annie?” Armin’s face flames up into a bright red, and Mikasa wonders how much of it is from the heat of the sun.
At her other side, she hears Jean snicker. “Oh, it’s nothing, Mikasa. Armin just ‘tutors’ Annie every Tuesday and Wednesday after school,” he says, waggling his brows and making air quotations around the word “tutor” as he does so.
Armin groans and covers his face in his hands, mumbling at Jean to be quiet and mind his own business. Mikasa smiles at how cute her friend’s acting, even if she can’t imagine how sweet, nerdy Armin would be with someone as gruff and stoic as Annie Leonhart.
“Isn’t Connie competing in a sprint, too?” Mikasa asks Jean, hoping to spare Armin any more embarrassment. Jean nods excitedly, pointing his finger over to where Connie and Sasha are standing, jumping up and down and looking like they’re giving each other pep talks.
Across the field, a whistle is blown to get everyone’s attention as the first event is about to start. At the same time, her phone dings in her lap, and her heart skips a beat, hopeful.
I see you.
Mikasa’s head whips around, searching the crowd for his face. When she spots him across the bleachers, he’s waving at her. Her entire body vibrates as she puts up a hand to wave back at him. She sees him type something on his phone and hers dings again.
Come sit with me.
She’s sure that her face is as bright as Armin’s was earlier when she reads his words and looks back at him. When she notices that he’s sitting with his usual group of friends, she sees the two girls from earlier in the hallway with him, too. She makes eye contact with Eren again and does an exaggerated motion of shaking her head.
I’m scared of your friends.
XD
She sees Eren get up, say something to his group, and then start in her direction. The girls look shocked as they watch him walking away. Despite that the runners are lining up at the starting line now, most of the crowd’s eyes are on Eren, and she can feel their gaze turn to her when they start to realize where he’s headed. Mikasa wants to shrink into herself and disappear. She wishes she had kept her sweater on because she has never felt more exposed than at this moment.
“Eren! Hey, are you gonna sit with us?” Armin says, his mouth widening into a smile as Eren materializes before them.
“Hey, bud. Yeah, I am.” The two of them share a quick handshake and hug. Armin scoots over so there’s an empty space between him and Mikasa. Her eyes widen as Eren sits down in between them, and the bare skin of his arm grazes hers.
Then, Eren’s face goes blank as he leans over.
“Jean.”
“Yeager.”
For a moment, the two boys look hard at one another. Mikasa doesn’t understand what they have against one another, but she thinks she might suffocate sitting in the middle. Just in time, another whistle goes off, and she exhales when everyone turns to watch the relay.
-
Over the course of a few hours, as they watch the different events and cheer on their friends, she learns that Eren had come to support Floch and his friend Colt who he plays soccer with on the weekends from Liberio Academy. He didn’t realize she had any friends in track and field, so he didn’t invite her because he didn’t want her to come just to be bored.
He asks about her friendship with Sasha and Connie, and Armin cuts in to tell him about their two wacky friends and all their funny antics. Jean, for the most part, is quiet the entire time, except for when Sasha and Connie are racing, and he stands to cheer them on.
All the events are so close, and Mikasa didn’t realize watching some teenagers run on a circle would be so nerve racking. In the end, Sasha’s relay team comes in first. Annie sets a new record for their school, and Connie places third in his own event. Floch and Colt compete against one another in the 300 hurdles, and Colt beats out Floch by a slim margin, which leaves the crowd hysterical.
As everyone’s filing off the bleachers, Eren’s hand rests gently on the curve of Mikasa’s lower back to keep her from drifting too far from him into the crowd.
“Do you wanna come say hi to my friends before we leave?” he asks from behind her, as they’re making their way off the bleachers. His breath makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand.
“Um… are you sure?” She turns up to try and read the expression on his face, but he’s waving at a group of his friends from below, farther off into the parking lot.
“Don’t be scared. They’re nice,” he replies, distracted and unaware of the anxiety scratching inside her. His hand presses into her back just slightly, urging her forward.
They reach the bottom of the stairs, and before parting ways, Jean takes hold of Mikasa’s arm. She can almost feel Eren’s glare from behind her, even if she doesn’t see it directly.
Jean’s saying something to her, but she can’t quite hear him with everyone shuffling around them and holding their own conversations. She steps away from Eren for a moment and tilts her head toward Jean to hear him better.
“I wanna talk to you about something tomorrow, okay?” he speaks in a low tone into her ear. Mikasa notices his cheeks are red, and she nods. They agree to meet in the courtyard before tennis practice tomorrow after school.
When Mikasa steps back over to where Eren is waiting, his arms are crossed over his chest, and his face is dark. His eyes are still shooting daggers at Jean’s retreating form.
“Still wanna say goodbye to your friends?” she asks, pulling Eren’s attention back to her. His expression softens, and he leads her to where his group is, all sitting or standing around the open trunk of someone’s car. They’re all joking around and laughing as her and Eren approach them, but they quiet down when they see her join the group behind Eren.
“Eren, where the fuck have you been?” Floch’s tone is casual, despite his aggressive language. He’s leaning on the back of the car, sweaty and tired looking. Eren smirks at him.
“Congrats on second place, loser.” Eren teases, dapping the other guy up.
“Yeah, yeah, fuck off, asshole.”
“I’m about to head out actually, but I wanted to introduce you guys to my friend, Mikasa.” Eren steps aside to reveal her behind him. “Mik, this is Floch, obviously. Marlowe, Surma, Hitch, and Carly.”
Mikasa looks up at everyone’s faces as Eren names them off, giving a small smile and awkward wave of her hand to each of them. She recognizes Hitch and Carly as the girls in the hallway earlier and feels herself shrinking when their eyes appraise the entirety of her.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Mikasa,” Marlowe says, shooting her a welcoming smile. He’s tall and built. His face is all sharp angles, but eyes and tone of voice are kind. Next to him, Surma, a boy with a buzzcut and tanned skin, nods in agreement.
“Yeah, now we know who’s been stealing our boy everyday after school,” Floch adds in with a quirk of his lip. Mikasa knows he meant it as a joke, but his eyes are half serious.
“Heh, sorry about that. It’s nice to finally meet you guys,” she responds, looking down, her voice soft and shy in her own ears.
Hitch steps forward to her, twirling a finger in a strand of Mikasa’s hair.
“Mikasa . Love that name. And your hair. So pretty.” Hitch’s voice is saccharine sweet, and she smiles, but it looks more like a bearing of her teeth.
Mikasa inadvertently takes a step back from her, wrapping her arms around herself. The other girl, Carly, breaks into a giggle and tugs her friend back away from Mikasa.
“Be nice, Hitch. She looks terrified of you.”
“What? I was being nice.” Hitch shrugs then turns back to Mikasa. “You are so pretty.”
Mikasa’s face flushes, and she mumbles out a quiet thanks. She looks back and forth from Hitch to Carly. They have similar features, both with wavy, dirty blonde hair and pink, pouty lips. But Carly is a softer beauty, with sleepy eyes and a heart shaped face, whereas Hitch is more striking, her green eyes and pointed expression piercing into Mikasa. They’re both the types of girls Mikasa imagines hanging off Eren’s arm and laying naked in his bed.
When she doesn’t know what else to say, she turns to Eren with a pleading look.
“Alright, well, we’re gonna head out now. I’ll see you guys later,” he says, nodding his head at them. As they turn to walk away, Floch yells after them.
“Mikasa! Come to the party this Saturday. My house.”
Eren looks back at him, and then down at Mikasa.
“Maybe!” He calls back and pulls Mikasa away from them.
-
By the time they’re pulling out of the school parking lot, it’s getting late. The sun is nearly setting in the horizon, and the world around them is darkening into a blue tint.
“That was really weird,” Mikasa states, resting her head on the knuckles of her fist, elbow against the window.
Eren blows a short laugh out through his nose. “Yeah, kind of. You don’t have to hang out with them again. I just thought it’d be weird if they didn’t know who you were.”
She peaks over at him, eyes tracing over the angle of his jaw, the point of his nose, the way the loose strands of his hair frame his achingly handsome face.
“Why would it be weird if they didn’t know me?” She asks, closing her eyes and sighing to herself.
“You know… ‘cause you’re my friend. And you said they scared you., Eren replies with a tilt of his chin, like it’s obvious and straightforward.
“They still scare me.”
“Yeah, well, I tried. It’s not my fault you’re shy,” He teases and reaches over with one hand to rattle her shoulder. She opens her eyes then and lets out a giggle. When his hand pulls away, she rethinks his words.
“I know I’m awkward. Sorry.” She bites the inside of her cheek, feeling stupid at how anxious she is around people.
“Don’t apologize, Mik. I think it’s cute.” He says, his lips quirking up at the sides. He glances over at her, and she’d bet money he said that just to see her blush. Which is lucky for him because her cheeks betray her.
The rest of the short drive, they sit in a comfortable silence. When Eren pulls into the driveway of her home, Mikasa stalls getting out. It’s nearly eight, and the only light left is the reflection of his headlights from her house’s garage door. She spent nearly five hours with him today, and still, she doesn’t want to leave. She imagines getting out of the car into the cool air would sting as much as ripping off a bandaid and letting the wound bleed out.
She looks down at her skirt and plays with a loose thread at the end of it. She can feel Eren’s eyes on her, probably waiting for her to say something or leave. But she doesn’t think she can do either one.
“Mikasa?”
“Hmm.”
“You know we’re here, right?”
“I know.”
She looks up at him then, and their eyes meet. No matter how many times she sees him, the intensity of his jewel toned irises sends a shock down her spine. Her gaze flickers down to his lips, and she wonders for a split second what they would feel like against hers.
“Mikasa.” Her name is a whispered plea as he leans forward, placing his hand on the back of her neck to pull their faces within mere inches of one another. She’s intoxicated by the blow of his hot breath on her lips.
Her eyes fall closed, and she leans forward, kissing him.