Work Text:
Film cameras have long been forgotten since DSLRs have risen. It is a lot easier to use such things compared to the difficulty of using film. Especially since most film cameras are not in the market anymore and are harder to fix once broken, the culture of such has almost completely died down.
For Mikasa Ackerman, her film camera means everything to her; she brings it everywhere and clutches it with all her heart, hoping to protect it from falling off. A black Canon AE – 1 with a 35mm lens hanging loosely around her neck with a Nikon strap, giving it an ironic presence. The camera itself was in near perfect conditions, having a red tape over the battery holder, to hold the broken hinges. The camera is Mikasa’s most prized possession next to her equally red scarf, wrapping around her neck.
It’s no surprise that on this day, together with her other things, she brought her two priceless things. Difficult as it might be, she hopes that these two things can help her get through the day. Shivering at the thought of what happened to her last school, she hopes hard.
Being new in a school, especially in your high school years, is not easy, much like how you handle a film camera. It takes a lot of getting use to and finding just the right system to get the perfect shot. In the case of Mikasa, that system means being in the shadows and hiding behind her camera, finding beauty in her shots, instead of putting herself out there. She’s comfortable that way, not being in the spotlight but letting others be in her spotlight, capturing each person’s story.
There is one person in particular that she likes being her subject. It is Annie Leonhartd. She likes taking her photos so much that within a day, two out of her five rolls are dedicated to the blonde haired girl. Mikasa feels disgusted with herself with that knowledge but she can’t help but admire the small girl through her camera.
Mikasa saw Annie on her first day of Trost High. She was nervous as ever and as soon as she entered her first classroom, she sat immediately near the window, away from the desk, not wanting to be the center of attention. That didn’t stop students from staring though. A new student is an interesting student, no matter how dull you are. In hopes to let her nerves calm down, she took out her camera and tried to take photos of her room. The stare intensified at the old contraption held on the new girl’s grasp.
Mikasa tried to ignore them and concentrated on focusing her lens at a specific point in her room. When she turned her lens to the front door, in came a bored looking, small blonde. Within a second, Mikasa clicked on her cam and the shutter went off with a noise. She thanked all the Gods that her new classmates were noisy enough with their whispers about her. The girl didn’t seem to notice and Mikasa hid her cam afterwards, feeling weird for taking the picture.
From there, Mikasa saw the blonde everywhere she went. In the cafeteria, to all her classes, the only class that they didn’t have together is Photography class, in which Mikasa was very thankful for.
The most prominent place that Mikasa would see Annie from is on the field. She later learned that Annie is a star football player (or soccer (ugh)). It then became a ritual for ebony haired girl to sit on the bleachers, in front of the field and take photographs of the blonde. She learned to love the scenery of football and started taking pictures of not only the tiny blonde but other players as well and how they move. It wasn’t long until Mikasa got the hang of moving subject photography using her film cam and she was very pleased with the outcome after having the time to develop them during her free time.
This went on for some time and because of her new found system to get through high school, she has yet to make friends with anyone in this school, except for Armin but that is because her brother introduced him to her one day in their home. Other than that, she stuck to herself and her camera. People tried to come up to her but mostly failed due to the lack of enthusiasm given to the photographer. It also wasn’t long until students started calling her “camera girl” in hush whispers. Mikasa didn’t mind as long as they didn’t interrupt her.
A week in to her new school and she sat in her usual spot after class on the bleachers, taking photos of whatever she can find on the field. She only has a few more shots left before her film is maxed, today is the day she is going to the photo store and buy more films for her camera, seeing as her stocked film in her room has ran out. She’s excited to buy more, maybe even thinking of buying a black and white one or an expired film.
She refocused herself to the task at hand, seeing the ball being passed around, wanting to get a better picture of the action. Adjusting her lens to focus on the right moment, she waits for a good shot to come to her, not wanting to waste a film at another blurry photo. She sits still with her camera on her face, body slightly crouching down in anticipation. The next thing she sees is the exact ball she has been following around, come towards her through her lens. She doesn’t know if it’s instincts or maybe it’s because she is shook but right before the ball hit her camera, she captures the moment in front of her hearing a crack right after the click sound. As she lay back on the bleachers, covering her right eye with both her hands, seemingly dropping her precious camera on the floor, she hopes to the Gods that the crack came from her skull and not her camera.
She hears screaming and footsteps coming her way but she does not falter her position, she keeps tending her right eye, having the difficulty of opening both her eyes as her left eye sympathized her right one. She has no clue who, is coming towards her.
“Oh, shit.” Mikasa freezes on her spot, knowing full well who that voice belongs. A week of smart ass comments and scoffs towards a teacher, it’s hard not to recognize the voice. “Are you okay? I’m so fucking sorry.”
Mikasa tries to open her eyes and tries to compose herself, but the pain is still there and her eyes simply refuse to follow what her brain is sending. She continues to crouch down and held her eye, not saying anything.
“Here, let me see.” Suddenly, soft hands touch both her wrists and she stiffens at the touch. She is surprise to say the least at how soft those hands truly are, not expecting them to be. Those hands lead her own hands away from her face and Mikasa lets them guide her. Once again, with all her might, she tries to open her eyes.
Once she does, she thinks she is blind by how bright everything is around her. Annie Leonhartd stands in front of her, concern written all over her face, the most emotion Mikasa has ever seen from the blonde. Everything else is still blurry and the pain is still there but watching the blonde’s features softens something inside Mikasa. She gulps inwardly.
“It’s not that bad, you’re fine but…” Annie trails on and Mikasa sees her looking down and follows her gaze. It’s difficult for Mikasa to see clearly what they are looking at, the blurriness still very much present, but she knows what it is and her heart sinks at the sight. Mikasa Ackerman, does not cry. She does not like to show weakness especially in front of others but when she sees her camera (baby) on the ground with the lens cracked, she tries hard to keep the tears from falling.
Annie sees this moment and feels bad, really bad for the girl. She lets go of both the girl’s wrist and picks up the broken camera, inspecting it for herself. Mikasa can only stare at the camera in the girl’s hand. It’s harder now to not lose it right then and there. She could feel the tears falling.
“I’m so sorry. I- we didn’t mean to. I should’ve blocked the ball. I-“ Annie can’t finish what she is trying to say, she sees the girl’s look and she feels how the girl’s heart sink. Coincidently, hers sinks as well. Annie looks at the girl and all she wants is to hug her and stop her from crying. She feels really bad for breaking the camera. It must’ve been really expensive for the girl to react that way and looking at the camera now it looks antique, like it has a lot of value and hard to find now a days.
“Can I have it back?” Annie blinks for a second then realizes that she is still holding the camera; she offers it back to the girl. Mikasa takes it so gingerly then cradles it with both her hands as if she is holding a dying child. Annie’s guilt only grows.
Mikasa looks at her camera and hopes that the only thing that is broken is her lens. If it’s only the lens, it is still salvageable but it’s expensive. With her budget at the moment, she can barely afford to buy more films for her cameras much less buy a new a lens. There’s also the prospect that lenses aren’t easy to come by, you’d be lucky enough to find one in a store and mostly people sell the whole set and not just a lens.
“Hey, if there’s anything I can do; anything at all. I’m really sorry, I feel really bad.” Mikasa looks back at Annie, almost forgetting that she is right in front of her. In any other circumstances, she would’ve blushed at her presence but she is too caught up with grieving on her camera. Honestly, she doesn’t blame anyone but herself. It’s perhaps karma that did all this.
“It’s fine. I’ll just go to the photo store and let them check on it.” Mikasa looks back down at her camera, having a saddened look. At that moment she doesn’t care that she sounds weak, she’s losing hope and it’s breaking her. For all the times that she tries to protect her camera, she can’t believe that it ended like this.
“Let me drive you! Please, it’s the least I can do.” Mikasa quickly looks back at her, her mouth agape inwardly but her eyes shows more. She wants to decline, say no. She doesn’t want to make it awkward for the blonde.
“Just stay here, I’ll just finish practice then I’ll drive you there. Ok? Cool.” Mikasa doesn’t even have a chance to reply or nod or anything. The small high schooler simply left it at that then goes back to her teammates. Mikasa follows the girl’s figure, running back to the field. She sees the blonde talking to her teammates for a bit then one of them suddenly slapps her shoulders. They were too far away to read their expression but she figures, they are just blaming the blonde for hitting the new kid. If her camera was still fixed, she would have taken a shot. She brings back her frown and stares as the team continue their practice. Mikasa wants to leave right then and there, not wanting to wait any longer to go to the store and see how they could fix her cam but she is somehow drawn to the blonde. She sees the expression on the girl, the way she pleaded to drive her to the photo store. She supposes that there isn’t any harm in going with the girl, plus she does need a ride. She still can’t get her way to the town much, despite it being small. Mikasa sulks the whole time she waits though, so she simply got out a book from her bag and reads. She would’ve rather taken photos but there’s nothing she could do.
It’s an hour later when Annie comes back, with her jersey bag, fresh clothes, same shorts but slippers for foot wear. Her hair looks like it was re-did into a bun, looking a lot neater than when she was playing. As she stands in front of Mikasa, she has a wide grin on her face. Mikasa can only stare at her, and close the book she was half reading, still worrying about her camera.
“Let’s go?” Mikasa only nods back to her, readying herself for the worst. She did take photos of this girl regularly.
Annie’s car was a lot like her. It was small and yellow. Mikasa can’t have guess that the star football player drives a mini cooper to school. She finds this amusing when she first sees the car being opened by Annie. Weirdly enough, she wants to know more about this girl.
“So. Where to?” Annie asks, looking at Mikasa, hands already on the wheel.
Mikasa gets out her phone from her pocket and searches for the place she has been searching for a while now. “Umm… Sonny and Bean’s Photo Store. It’s found in… Karanes district?”
Without a word, Annie nods then got the car out of the parking space with no problem. Shortly afterwards they are on the road, driving towards the store. They drive in silence and Mikasa thinks that silence would make her uncomfortable, but instead it was welcoming.
“So,” Annie brakes the silence first, “you’re the new girl right?”
Mikasa tries not to cringe at the phrase ‘new girl’, not being comfortable being nicknamed that; ‘camera freak’ is better to be honest, at least she’s being called for something she likes.
“Yeah, pretty cool school so far.” She fiddles with her broken camera as she answers, cursing herself for making a rhyme, unintentionally.
“Yeah, it’s aight. It’s big though.” Annie keeps her eyes on the road and both her hands on the steering wheel. Mikasa, stares at her using her peripheral vision, still fiddling with her camera. Suddenly, a hand was offered her way and she turns her head to Annie, looking at the hand questioningly.
“I forgot to introduce myself earlier. I’m Annie.”
Mikasa, hesitantly lets go of her camera and reaches out to grab Annie’s hand. Annie surprises Mikasa again with the knowledge that, despite what the athlete looks like, her hands are soft and smooth to the touch. Mikasa sucks her breath at the knowledge.
“I… I know.” Annie retracts her arm back and for the briefest moment looks at her, with a smirk etching on her face.
“Should I start calling you ‘I know’ then?” Mikasa instantly blushes and turns into a fish, opening and closing her mouth, not really sure what or how to react to what the small athlete said. She’s embarrassed to say the least.
“Relax! You look like you’re having a stroke. I know you too. It was just for formality’s sake… Mikasa.” Annie laughs and her smirk grows bigger as she sees the said girl, faces forward (too quickly) with her face turning even redder than before. “You’re cute.”
Mikasa’s face can’t have been redder during that moment. She tries her best to hide her face. She has never been called cute before. She has been called a freak, a weirdo, even brave from her adopted father but cute was not one of them. How can she possible react to that?
Her torture soon ends when they spot the store. Mikasa is thankful for this and sighs out her fluster. She turns her eyes back to Annie and watches her park the car with ease. For a split second, their eyes meet.
“Here we are, I guess.” They both look up to see the old store in front of them. It looks small and well used. Paint was fading on spots and the window was stained everywhere. The sign itself is already unreadable. Despite that, they can also see old cameras being showcased from the outside, signifying that it is a photo store.
“Yeah… Umm… Thanks for the ride. I can take it from here.” Mikasa begins as she slowly takes her seatbelt off and opens the door.
“Wait! I said I’ll make it up to you. Let me pay for the expenses.” Annie says as she too opens the door on her side of the car. Together they get out of the small car.
“You really don’t have to. If you do that, I’ll be forever embarrassed.” Mikasa hang her head as she closes the door, thinking about it.
“Then, let me at least accompany you while they check your cam.” Annie pleads, both their doors still open.
Mikasa thinks about it. She went silent for a while, just staring at Annie. A second later she sighs in defeat knowing full well that the blonde won’t take no for an answer. “Fine. You can come.” She says this as she closes the door at her side, a little bit forceful than she likes. She cringed\s inwardly at her forcefulness.
Annie only grinned and closed her door, almost having similar force. She walks over to the store, locking her car with a button on in her keys. She opens the old glass door of the building and chimes ring as it is opened. Annie holds the door and smiles at Mikasa. “Ladies first.”
“And here I thought chivalry is dead” Mikasa whispers, not really intending for Annie to hear her. She walks past at the stunned blonde and took in the insides of the store. Mikasa is in heaven right now.
“I knew you were funny!” Mikasa ignores Annie’s comment, hearing the door closing and the blonde following after her. Inside were filled with old cameras, lenses, lighting equipment and a lot more. She can see dusts on the shelves, spider webs on the corner of the ceiling. There’s a certain smell to it. It’s not a bad smell, it’s the smell you get when you go up to your attic and look for an old thing you need but you end up looking at all the things you hid up there. It’s a nostalgic smell and Mikasa seems to have been frozen at the delight of it all.
“You ok?” Annie asks at the stunned girl. Mikasa looks at her with a blink. She doesn’t know why and maybe she doesn’t care but she explains to the blonde. “Doesn’t it feel like you’ve been here? It’s very obvious that this place is old. It just feels like I was meant to be here. You know? It sounds stupid but, there are just things that are meant to be.” She’s not really sure where she’s going with it but it feels right saying those things.
She can see Annie looking at her, not a pointed look or a weird way. She just looks at her as if intrigued at everything she was saying. No one has looked at Mikasa that way. Eren has always just cuts her off and tells his story that is similar to hers. Her adopted parents simply hum at her words but with Annie, it’s different. It feels nice.
“I- I’m sorry for keeping you waiting! Uhh… Welcome to Sonny and Bean’s Photo Store. How can I help you?” A blonde man emerges from the back door of the store, having ink all over his white polo. He looks nervous and unsure whether or not to leave what seems to be the office of the store. Mikasa, comes up to the man, leaning on the display, hands on her precious baby. “Don’t lean there! They get so fussy when customers lean on where their precious cameras are.”
Instantly, Mikasa straightens her posture and looks at Annie with furrow eyes, as the blonde herself walks near them. “Oh. I’m so sorry.” She places the camera on the glass and just now notice the number of antique cameras on display. She slaps herself internally and focuses to the moment at hand. “It’s my ba- my camera. It was hit by a ball and broke, I was hoping you could fix it?”
“Of course! Let me check on it first at the back, it’ll only be a minute.” He takes the camera off of the display and walks back towards where he came from. Mikasa closes her eyes and sighs briefly, hoping hard that nothing major was broken.
“I’m sorry again.” She jumps at the feel of the blonde’s hands on her shoulder, opening her eyes and snapping her head towards her. What she is seeing now made her heart melt. She has never seen a very sincere set of blue eyes in her life. Mikasa has to swallow hard at this knowledge
“I-It’s fine. I guess it was bound to happened” she looks back down, admiring the many arrays of vintage film cams. She instinctively reaches for her scarf, and covers her mouth with it, still looking at the cameras.
“You really like photography don’t you?” The hand on Mikasa’s shoulder moves away and she can feel Annie standing next to her and admiring the cameras as well.
“Yeah, ever since I was a kid.” She smiles fondly at the memories that flashes and she tightens her grip at the scarf.
“You also, really like that scarf. I guess both you camera and your scarf are your safe space then? I noticed it since day one.” She snaps her head at Annie again.
“You noticed?” Annie turns to her and smiles genuinely, giving Mikasa’s stomachs backflips.
“Well, yeah. Hard not to notice you. Can I ask a really personal question though?” Annie cocks her head as she ask. Mikasa is about to pass out at that moment but wills herself not to.
“That depends on how personal it is.” Annie laughs at this and Mikasa is fairly certain that the blonde drew closer to her.
“Why so fond of those two personal things?” Mikasa freezes, she looks away from Annie and continues staring at the cameras. She grows silent.
“I’m sorry. You do-“ Annie is cut off by the blonde man coming back from back door, with Mikasa’s camera on hand.
“It’s just the lens that’s broken; you can just a buy a new one. The inside of it is perfectly fine.” Mikasa looks up joyed at that news but then is crestfallen.
“Do you have compatible lenses for it?” Her spirits were going down again as she braces herself for the worse.
“Fortunately for you, we do but we only have one. A 50mm lens.” The blonde man crouches down and opens the display and got something inside. Once he got back up, he held a lens smaller than Mikasa’s old one. Mikasa, holds on it as the seller gave it to her.
“How much is it?” Annie just stares at the two, having the gist of what is going on.
“It’s a hundred dollars. It’s cleaned and barely been used but fully functional.” Mikasa almost drops the lens when she hears the price and stares at the seller. “That’s the last price…uh… sir?”
“Oh, call me Moblit, I’m only a few years older I imagine and yes. It’s the only lens left for your model and my boss had a difficulty of finding it, I hope you can understand…” her soul is crushed again and she is in near tears.
She gives the lens back to Moblit and took her camera to her arms again. It will take her a long time to save that much money. She spent most of her savings on film rolls and buying for new things for her new room, plus she doesn’t have a job yet. She doubts that lens will stay forever in the store and this is the only photo store in town. She sighs sadly and stares back at the seller.
“Thank you for checking on my camera. Maybe I can come back for the lens once I get enough money.” She hangs her head afterwards and starts walking to the exit, not waiting for Annie to follow.
“Ok… um… Y-your welcome! Hope you come again!” She hears him say in a rush as she opens the door to the store, still sulking. She just stands outside of the store still cradling her baby. She doesn’t even hear the door open again as she is too busy sulking.
“Are you ok?” No reply.
“Come on, get in the car.” Annie nudges her forward but she doesn’t move and she only looks back at her.
“Why?”
“I wanna take you home, so come on.” Mikasa blinks at this.
“You don’t have to, I know my way home.”
“Yes, I have to. I ruined your camera and that made you sad. Pretty girls shouldn’t be sad.” Annie practically drags her to the car, opening the front seat door for Mikasa to get in to. “Go on. I promise, I want to and it’s me trying to make it up to you.” Mikasa doesn’t argue further and went inside. Annie follows a few moments after her. They sit in silence for a while. Annie doesn’t drive yet and Mikasa still keeps looking at her camera. When Annie feels like Mikasa isn’t going to talk she turns on the engine.
“It was a gift.” Annie pauses for a moment and looks at Mikasa weirdly. “The camera and the scarf it was a gift.” Annie let the engine run and face her completely, listening to whatever she has to say.
“My mother was fond of knitting. She taught me all that I know about it know. She was just a house wife but she was happy. I could tell. My father was the one who provided for us and he was doing well. He- he was a photographer, well known in the industry. He was always fond of vintage cameras, there was one camera that was his father’s and he was very fond of it. One night, my mother woke me up. She dragged me to this little room in my bed room. She kept crying and telling me to be quiet and that I don’t come out until the bad men are away. Before she closed the door on me, she gave me a box and she told me: ‘be strong my brave little girl. Daddy loves you, mommy loves you. Inside this box is our hearts poured in it so you’ll never be alone, Mikasa. Be strong.’ She closed the door and hid me off from danger. She didn’t realize there was a hole inside of that room. I saw everything, I saw how they held my dad captive and how he pleaded. I saw the blood and I saw the tears. They almost got me too but, Eren saved me, everything was a blur after that. The end of it made my house burn, we were kids who were scared and didn’t know what we were doing. My scarf and this camera are that’s left of my parents. These are what are left of my old life.”
Mikasa isn’t sure what to do after that. She feels uncomfortable with Annie’s silence. “Maybe I shou-“ She was stops from trying to open the door when a hand holds hers. She looks up at Annie and sees the worried expression on her face. “I’m –“ she is cut off once again when Annie stares straight into her eyes.
“Thank you for telling me this. I know it wasn’t easy and I appreciate it.” Annie looks down at their hands and suddenly she intertwined them together, she looks back at Mikasa again and smiles at her. “I’m glad you’re alive and you’re parents would have been so proud to see you now.” Mikasa’s eyes widen at this and she doesn’t know what hit her to do so but she cries. She cries and holds Annie’s hand tighter.
It is a long time since she has made her live with it , years of therapy and a lot of pent up rage led her to finally realize that nothing could bring back her parents. Nothing could stop that night from happening but even so having moved on from it did not erase the pain, her bottling it up all those years surely didn’t help but as she cries in that small car, getting out all that she had kept in to the blonde football player, something inside her lifts.
Out of force of habit, Mikasa brought her camera to school the next day. She is exhausted from yesterday and when Annie took her home, she passed out after doing all her rituals. The only thing different about today is that instead of having her camera on her neck, it was placed on a bag and a few students noticed. Gossip was a popular thing for high-schoolers so it is no shock that everyone knew what happened. They even knew that Annie drove Mikasa and they started rumours about it. Mikasa didn’t listen to one thing they said and kept going on with her day, still sulking at her broken camera. When she arrives to her first class and walks over to her usually seat, she is shock to see a small gift on her desk.
She looks around the class, wary of it being a prank and sees no one minding her. She sits down cautiously and looks at the box. With great hesitation, she pries the box open, bracing herself for what’s to come. When she does, her eyes widen at what she think it is. She grabs the note that was on top of a lens. THE exact lens that she saw in the store. She also sees some film rolls inside the box and she feels so giddy inside. She looks up once again and the exact moment that she does, she sees Annie Leonhardt walking inside. She has a deep feeling it was her and her suspicions are answered when she sees Annie winking at her before she takes her seat a little further away from her. She grins back at her, having a slight tinge on her cheeks. She looks back at the note and read it,
‘Me driving you was my apology. Me giving this to you is a gift. Make more memories with these. We can’t erase the bad ones but we can make more good ones.’
Her grin only intensifies after reading the note. Maybe someday, she won’t have to take candid shots of Annie running around the filled and risking her camera to have a nice photo of her. Maybe someday she’ll have a nice close up portrait of Annie, having a story of her own. Maybe that someday is soon.