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Hanji skidded around the side of a house, her feet slipping on the cobblestone path beneath her. Her bucket full of frogs banged against her shin, dislodging the rock she’d placed on top to keep them inside. She fell, throwing her hands out in front of her as the confused frogs were flung from the bucket, her palms smacking hard onto the ground below.
Hanji pushed herself up, shaking out her stinging hands when she saw the frogs hopping away from her. “Ah! Wait!” she cried out, jumping at a group of them, but they scattered when she got close. However, one jumped towards her instead of away, and Hanji managed to grab it. “Gotcha!” Hanji grinned and held the frog up to her face as it kicked its legs wildly against her arms.
“Where’d that brat go?”
Hanji gasped, remembering why she’d been running in the first place. Keeping her hold on her last frog, she scrambled to her feet just as she heard the boots of the Military Police officers turn the corner where she’d slipped and fallen. “Hey! Get back here, you little—”
But Hanji didn’t stop, turning every corner that she could find, but the sound of boots still kept following her. What did she have to do to lose them?
Hanji ran around another building, looking over her shoulder to see how close behind the MPs were, and slammed into something soft. Hanji bounced back a few steps, shaking her head, and looked up to see a boy staring back at her in surprise. His breathing was heavy, and a bit of his thick black hair clung to the sweat on his forehead. His left shirt sleeve was torn, and Hanji’s eyes were drawn to the flecks of red at the edges of the ripped cloth.
“Stop right there!”
Hanji flinched, but the angry voices were coming from behind the boy this time. He frowned, grabbing Hanji’s hand, making her drop the frog. “Hey! Come back!” she called to it, but the boy was dragging her into a side alley that she hadn’t noticed before.
As soon as they were out of sight, he twisted her arm behind her back. “Ow!” Hanji said, and something cool and sharp touched her throat.
“Don’t make a sound,” the boy said.
Hanji didn’t move, watching the shadows of the Military Police pass by their hiding place. She held her breath until the sound of their boots on the cobblestones faded away, and then let it out in a big sigh. The cold pressure on her neck disappeared, and the boy dropped her arm. Hanji rubbed her wrist as he walked around her.
“You didn’t have to do that. I was running from them too,” Hanji said.
He sighed. “It probably wasn’t for the same reason.”
“You owe me a frog,” Hanji said, frowning up at him.
The blue-gray eyes under his black bangs shifted, and he looked so confused that Hanji almost laughed. “Why do I owe you a frog?” he said.
“Because I was holding my last one, and you made me drop it,” Hanji said, folding her hands behind her head.
The boy stared at her for another second, and then turned away, shaking his head. “This is stupid.” He began walking further down the narrow path, and it took Hanji a second to realize that he was leaving her behind.
“Hey! Hold on!” Hanji jumped to her feet, rushing to catch up with him. “Is your arm okay?”
He stopped, turning back a little to face her. He looked confused again. “My arm?”
Hanji pointed at the torn sleeve. He turned his arm to get a better look and grimaced. “Tch.”
“Did you get scratched?” Hanji asked.
“No,” he said. He bunched up the torn part over his shoulder, making it look like one of his sleeves was too short. “I’m fine.”
“Did the MPs do that?” Hanji continued.
He stared at her again. “You know, most people don’t want to talk to someone right after they’ve held a knife to their throat.”
Hanji tilted her head. “Is that what that was?”
The boy’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth only to close it again. “They were right about the upper world,” he muttered.
Hanji leaned closer. “What?”
“Nothing. Go home.” He turned away, holding the torn gap closed with a fist, and started walking away from her again.
Hanji sucked in her bottom lip, looking down at the ground through the gap between the rim of her glasses and her round cheeks. He didn’t seem to be hurt, and he had threatened her even though she hadn’t realized it, but part of her didn’t want to leave him alone. Not just yet. She ran to catch up to him again.
“Hey! Uh…” Hanji realized that she’d forgotten to think of an excuse when he turned to look at her again. “They could, um, you know… They could still be looking for us! Yeah! So we should stick together for now. Don’t you think?”
He blinked at her and then looked away, not slowing down his stride. Hanji walked next to him, waiting for his answer. “I guess you have a point,” he said.
Hanji grinned, running a little ahead of him. “So, why were they chasing you?”
He let go of his sleeve, shoving his hands in his pockets. He closed his eyes and walked past her. “It’s not important,” he said.
“I was throwing rocks at the wall,” Hanji offered, following him. “And they got mad, ‘cause last week I was hitting it with a shovel.”
He paused, glancing at her over his shoulder. “A shovel?”
“Mm-hmm!” Hanji nodded at him.
The boy shook his head and turned away once more, but the air between them felt lighter than before. Hanji wondered if she’d impressed him, if only just a little.
The alleyway started to widen out, and the sound of voices drifted down to them. Hanji realized where they were. They’d looped around to the town marketplace. But that also meant—
Hanji grabbed the back of the boy’s collar just before he walked out into the crowd. He gagged, twisting out of her grip in half a second. He turned on her, eyes narrowing. “The fuck was that for?”
Hanji held up her hands. “Just wait a second! Around here, the MPs—“
She was cut off as the familiar sound of boots came closer. Hanji dove behind a nearby box, the boy doing the same on the opposite side of the alleyway. A handful of MPs passed them, surveying the crowd and glancing into the alleyway before moving on. Hanji waited a few seconds before coming out of her hiding place.
“They hang around the marketplace a lot,” Hanji said, watching the crowd. “You would’ve walked right into their patrol. You have to time it right.”
The boy left his hiding spot at a slower pace, scowling at her. “Are you a thief?” he asked.
“Huh? No!” Hanji waved her arms around. “Nothing like that… That’s just how I was caught when I ran away from them last time.” Hanji glanced into the crowd. “I know a place where they won’t look, though. It’s kind of out of the way.”
“I’ll go there as long as you don’t grab me again,” the boy said.
Hanji smiled at him. “Deal!”
After navigating the crowds in the marketplace and taking the long way around in case any MPs had spotted them, they reached Hanji’s hiding spot. It was a small wooden bridge over an even smaller river that ran between two tight rows of houses. There was enough room for them to sit and dangle their feet over the edge, but there wasn’t a big chance of them being spotted unless someone came down the path.
Hanji sat down on the bridge, the boy sitting next to her. Before Hanji could say anything, he pulled out the knife from his pocket and began to spin it between his fingers, twirling it so fast that Hanji couldn’t believe that he wasn’t cutting himself.
“How do you do that?” she said in awe.
He caught the handle between his middle and index fingers and stared at her. “Practice,” he said.
“Can I try?”
“No. I don’t want you bleeding all over me,” he said, starting the spin the knife again. “You’re a weird kid.”
Hanji stuck out her tongue at him. “I’m not a kid! And we’re the same age.”
The boy caught the knife handle again and put it back in his pocket. “I’m pretty sure that I’m older than you.”
Hanji compared their heights with her hand, the edge of her palm tapping the middle of his forehead. “Are you sure about that?” Hanji said, smirking.
He turned red and looked away. Hanji giggled, squinting against the reflection on the water.
“So…you like knives the way that I like frogs?”
“You like frogs?” He said it as if she’d stated that she liked garbage.
“Yeah!” Hanji said, swinging her legs.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why not?” Hanji answered. “They’re so cool! When they croak, they blow up their necks or their cheeks all big like this—” Hanji puffed out her cheeks and held out her arms in front of her body, fingertips touching in a circle. “And then,” she continued, red-faced from holding her breath, “They have this weird slimy skin and sometimes bumps and I collect all the different ones that I see and put them by the pond in the back of my house. There are so many. They make noise, but I think it’s cool. You should come and see it sometime!”
“Gross,” the boy muttered. Hanji giggled again.
“And even if I wanted to go,” he continued, surprising her, “I’m not allowed to be up here anyway.”
“‘Up here’?” Hanji asked. She leaned forward, trying to get a better look at his face. He turned away. “What does that mean?”
“I’m from the underground. That’s why the MPs were chasing me.”
“Oh.” Hanji didn’t know what else to say to that. She’d heard of the underground, but it had always seemed more like a rumor or a bad fairy tale. Hanji couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like living there.
She kicked at the river, the tip of her shoe making ripples on the water’s surface. “So you’ve got more to worry about down there than just walls, huh?”
“Mm.”
Hanji could feel the same anger that she felt towards the walls rising up in her again, but this time it was a little different. Her fingers dug into the edge of the bridge, and Hanji could feel splinters shoving their way into her skin, but she didn’t care. “Why do any of us have live this way?” she said. “Above the walls, underground… We’re all trapped. The same way that I trap my frogs. This is stupid. Why can’t we just kill all the Titans and live free?”
She could feel his eyes on her, but Hanji was a little afraid to meet his gaze this time. Hanji knew that freedom wasn’t that easy. But that didn’t mean that they shouldn’t try.
When she finally got the courage to turn and look at him, Hanji saw that he was looking at her with a calm expression, but something in his gray-blue eyes flashed like they were on fire. “I feel the same,” he said.
Hanji felt her face flush, although she wasn’t sure why. She looked back towards the river, feeling like she would burn up if she looked at him for too long. “T-Thanks,” she stuttered out, not knowing what she was thanking him for.
“Hey! You little brats!”
Hanji jumped, but the boy was already on his feet with the knife out again. She turned and saw several MPs running towards them down the path between the houses.
Hanji pushed herself to her feet. “Just go,” she said to the boy.
He shook his head, not taking his eyes off the incoming soldiers. Hanji pushed him from the side, catching him off-balance. “It’ll be worse if they catch you, right?” she said as he caught his footing. “My parents will just yell at me. But you…” Hanji’s words caught when she met his burning eyes again, and she dropped her glance. “You need to go. So go!”
He hesitated for a second, and then Hanji watched his worn boots run off the bridge. She followed his retreating back with her eyes until he turned a corner and was gone. She smiled.
A heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder. “And why aren’t you running away with your friend, huh?” The MP shook her, but Hanji wasn’t afraid of him. She was sure now that she’d find a way to be free from all of this.
And she was even more sure that someday the boy would find his freedom too.
Hanji kept an eye out, but she didn’t see the boy again. However, when she went back to the bridge a few days later, Hanji found a fat toad sitting in the middle of the wooden boards with a green ribbon around its neck.
“Dummy,” she smiled. “That’s not a frog.”