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He first notices her absence when he’s hungry.
Two weeks after the fight—one week after the breakup.
He always believed they balanced each other out in their relationship—Mikasa was the part of him he never had, and Eren was a part she never knew she needed—like two things that made a whole.
He’d fallen in love with her when he was nine and couldn’t really comprehend the true meaning behind the concept of love and it’s counterpart, hatred, for all he’d known was that he wanted to be with her forever, wanted to marry her, wanted her to be his. So it’s weird how he’s been going about his life without so much as noticing her absence in seven entire days. He’s been given things to focus on, rather than her—work, buying groceries, going to the gym, living his life. But on one particularly exhausting day at work, when the groceries in his fridge have run low and his muscles still ache from weight training earlier at the gym, Eren doesn’t have the energy to try to push the thought of her away from him in his mind.
It’s 7pm when Eren’s stomach growls the first time, 7:38pm when it growls for the third, and by the time it’s 9:03pm, he’s lost track. So what does he do? Make himself dinner, of course.
(During the process, he gets frustrated more times than once—nearly ends up setting the noodles on fire, has to turn off the heat on the stove to just take a seat in his living room to contemplate his life decisions, and accidentally cuts his palm right down the center when cutting the boiled egg in half. In the end, his meal is decent.)
Eren takes his first bite (or slurp) of the noodles, and immediately grimaces.
There’s something oddly insulting about exactly following a recipe step-by-step, only to have it still come out vaguely wrong. All he’d made were noodles—how can you mess up noodles? Mikasa had made it for him once, and somehow managed to turn dollar store ramen into a delicacy. He tried to replicate it tonight, but must’ve messed up somehow, because it tastes odd on his tongue, not like Mikasa’s did.
But he begrudgingly makes his way to the couch anyway with his bowl of slop because this is all he has for dinner and like hell is he going to waste it. He slurps the ramen up, trying to stuff away how strange it tastes by playing some tv show in the background instead; when he’s halfway through the bowl, his fingers twitch, itching for his phone, but he recoils because he is not going to call her. It’s not like the noodles are necessarilybad, because they are still edible—they’re just different.
They don’t taste like home.
-
He notices her absence again after a bar fight.
Three and half weeks after the fight—two and a half after the breakup.
Except he isn't the one who fights.
He’s making his way home after a night of bar hopping with Connie and his college friends, swaying with each step down the sidewalk when he sees it happen in front of him.
Like a bomb, it explodes all at once. Or perhaps Eren’s mind is simply too inebriated to notice how slowly the events unfurl, to pick apart the nuances in the way the two guys argue with each other across the street. He recognizes one of them as someone who’d been sitting at the bar he’s just stopped at—alone, downing drink after drink.
They’re screaming at each other, or just talking really loudly and passionately, and at a certain point they get all up in each other’s face and Eren worries they might just start making out in front of him. But then, one of them swings—the one who seems sober—and Eren stills in place.
Boom. Like a bomb.
It escalates faster than he can process. Life moves slowly but the fight is a blur, lighting fast, and Eren’s world spins—he spins through time and space and… and oh god, he’s going to be sick. He drank too much and didn't eat enough and just eugh.
Be a good samaritan, he tries to tell himself, and if he were sober, then maybe he’d break up the fight. But he has to catch himself against the brick wall beside him when he even thinks of moving, and the fight has exploded to such a point Eren can’t even remember who got hit when because they just keep going at it and at it and oh god he really is going to be sick—
He throws up on the side of the sidewalk.
He feels like a useless mess. Watching this fight unfold, so drunk out of his mind he can’t even think about walking without getting dizzy. If Mikasa were here, she’d slide her warm body right up next to his and wrap an arm around his waist, swinging his arm over her shoulder so he has nothing to do but lean against her, letting her lead him to safety because she’s always just been that person for him. She’s always provided safety. Always always always. And why did she leave now? Is he being punished? He can’t even walk straight for fuck’s sake so why did she leave him and whatever the reason is he’s sorry he’s sorry he’s just so sick and hungry and please Mika just come back—
“Hey!” Someone finds the fight and Eren watches them rush towards the two bloodied men, pulling one guy off the other. “Hey, hey! Break it up, guys!”
Ah, shit, he thinks, drunken mind belatedly realizing what he’d just thought, who he’s missing, why there was an indescribable weight in his chest. Don’t think that. She’s gone. It’s been weeks now, are you really not used to it?
But he isn’t. He really isn’t. He slumps down against the wall right next to where he’d just hurled out his breakfast, and tries not to sob when he looks over to the now broken-up fight and spies the blood against the cement and thinks to himself, sickened—it looks just like her scarf.
-
Slowly, piece by piece, bit by bit, the recollections of what once was comes back to him. Sometimes, he forgets that she isn’t here.
Eren wakes up on Saturdays when Mikasa would usually spend the night at his place and accidentally finds himself making two cups of coffee instead of one. He realizes that he’s ended up making an extra cup when he already put three spoons of sugar and creamer into the mug, and decides that since he shouldn't waste it, he ends up drinking two cups of coffee that morning instead of one. (His bowels hate him that afternoon.)
In the evening on Sundays, when she’d usually stop by after her shift for them to share dinner, he absently finds himself waiting by the door only to realize that she won’t walk in.
They’ve always been together for so long, so it’s hard trying to force himself into sudden isolation from the girl who once was his everything—who might still be his everything. The simple prospect of her is something that haunts him, day-to-day—it used to be a pleasant thought, blissful and expectant: Mikasa gets off work early today so I can see her earlier; I’m hanging out with Mikasa this weekend; tomorrow is date night. Yet now it is like a ghost is creeping into his life—as though she has died, except she hasn’t—she’s simply living without him, and now he’s been torn apart within—his bearings so scattered he can’t even focus at the gym or bring himself to smile at work.
Perhaps this is just a trauma response. Eren thinks of his best friend, of Armin, of what he’d say to help—maybe your brain is trying to protect itself. Maybe that’s why you keep forgetting she’s here. Maybe you just can’t accept it.
And sure. Maybe that is the case, but when Eren digs and digs and fights and fights deeper into his mind, he can’t think of any ways to help himself. Because he’d know the issue all along—he’s in denial. But if only Armin were here in person—if only Mikasa were here. Then they would tell him how to help himself. Because it has always been them—always been her—before it had even been him.
Now who is he, without her?
-
He has lunch with Armin one day when the blond prompts that they should meet up and hang out since it’s been a while. They go to a diner that he, Mikasa, and Armin used to frequent in high school, and Eren accidentally takes a seat in the booth right next to Armin before realizing that Mikasa isn’t with them and instead situates himself on the other side. He didn’t tell Armin about that breakup despite it being a little over a month since it had happened, and he’d wanted to appear fine, but somehow, Eren worries that his demeanor might give away his distress.
“You doing alright?” Armin eventually asks as they wait for their orders once their waitress leaves, and all Eren can think is, ah, fuck. What gave it away?
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He shrugs, looks away, deciding that no, he will not dig into his inner conflict today—this lunch is something he wants to enjoy, not dissect meaninglessly until it drives him mad.
Armin blinks and stares at him like he’d grown three heads. “I mean, about you and Mikasa,” he clarifies as though all Eren needed was clarification—as though he wasn’t deliberately trying not to talk about it. “It must be rough,” he ploughs on, “especially since she’s always loved you, even in high school. I’m just worried you might feel guilty, or something.”
Eren cocks a brow. “What?”
Armin cocks a brow right back at him. “What?” He asks back, as though he has no idea what he’d just said.
Eren points a finger at him. “Why would I feel guilty?”
“Well, I just mean that I can only imagine how bad you must feel, since she’s loved you for so long yet you—“
“Armin, she dumped me. ”
Armin stutters, visibly surprised by this turn of events. “Wait—huh?” For all his virtue and brilliance, his intelligence fails him here—though no one can really blame him. It had always been Eren and Mikasa when people spoke of them—always Mikasa after Eren, chasing after Eren, even when he was going through his weird teenage angst phase and didn’t want to give her the light of day. So of course she was the one who got dumped, right? Of course it was him who decided he needed better than her, as though she isn’t the best thing that ever happened to him and might ever happen to him.
Eren leans back in his seat, upset for reasons other than guilt—bitter because of his bruised ego. “Yeah. Turns out, she and I just weren’t compatible.”
“But she dumped you?”
“Yes.”
Armin gives him this incredulous look. “You sure you didn’t cheat on her and she found out?”
Eren scoffs, affronted. “Jesus, no, Armin. Who do you take me as?”
“Sorry, sorry,” the blond exhales, sitting back and exhaling a long sigh. “I’m just trying to make sense of it, I guess.”
“You’re trying to make sense of it,” Eren crows, shaking his head. Their waitress returns to them now, rounding the corner with a tray of their orders. “Well, at least she’s happy now.” His throat tightens with unease. “She must be.”
“And you?”
Eren blinks at his friend. “And me… what?”
“Are you happy, Eren?”
He never finds the answer to that question.
-
Eren recalls how he’d always wondered why Mikasa had chosen him. He remembers a day, early in their relationship, when their bare legs were tangled underneath their sheets and their naked bodies were huddled close together almost as though they were searching for warmth, when he had asked, “ why did you choose me?”
Mikasa hummed questioningly against his chest. It was dark, with the lights off and sun gone, so Eren did his best to try to gauge her reaction to this conversation by the way her body felt against his—if she’d tense up or not.
“I mean like, you’re basically a goddess, ” he commented, to which she snorted, “ and it’s not like you haven’t had people who wanted you before. Even that horse-face liked you at one point.”
She hummed again, understanding him now because that’s just how they were—they understood each other. “I don’t know, ” she answered truthfully, her shoulders riding in a shrug against him. “ Thinking about loving someone who isn’t you just feels… difficult. Foreign. ” She scooted up so that they were eye-to-eye, and with Eren’s eyes just barely adjusted to the darkness, he could see the sincerity in her expression. “ Loving you is like listening to a catchy song. It’s simple why I like it, and that’s why I like it—because it’s simple. You’re just easy to love.”
Those words sat comfortably in his brain. Eren didn't even fight the smile that spread across his lips, for he knew it was dark which meant Mikasa probably couldn’t see his childlike glee, anyway.
“Okay, your turn, ” she prompted, and he could hear the smugness in her voice when she asked, “ why me?”
Eren hummed in thought, squeezing his arms tighter around her as he pulled them impossibly closer to each other, testing the way his response sounded on his tongue. “Because you make great ramen.”
She sighed at that. “Would it kill you to be nice to me?”
“I’m always nice to you, ” he’d gasped, affronted. “ I remember being reaaaallly nice to you last night.”
She burned red. “Don’t tease me.”
“You enjoyed it when I teased you last night, though.”
She sighed, petulantly harrumphing as she turned to face the wall, making Eren crow with laughter as he scooted forward to close the distance she tried to put between them. Her back to his front, his arms wrapping around her chest, holding her in place so she could feel his heart beat beneath his ribs. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, pressing a kiss to her neck. “ You know I love you.”
“Do I? ” She was vexed when she asked, “ do I really?”
“I always do, ” he hummed, pressing his lips into her head of hair. “ Whether you know it or not. It’s always been you, Mikasa.”
The silence that followed made him grow heavy with eager anticipation. He pressed light, chaste kisses over her skin as he waited, as though somehow the press of his lips would eventually coax a response out of her.
“You’re too smooth for your own good,” she eventually uttered, but with his arm secured over the soft mounds on her chest, he could feel the way her heart raced against time.
“You love that about me.”
She snorted when he pressed a kiss to the spot beneath her ear where she swore she wasn’t ticklish, because she did, and she knew it, and he knew it too. They loved everything about each other.
At one point they did, anyway.
-
He’s deciding on what to make himself for breakfast on a particularly slow morning when he sees the bag of chocolate chips collecting dust in the back of his pantry and is thrown back into the past so aggressively he loses his breath.
Five weeks after the fight—four weeks after the break-up.
They didn’t usually fight. They’ve argued and bickered over trivial things even before they were in a relationship together—disputes which always resulted in some sort of resolution, but not once had they ever fought. Not like this.
Mikasa had been finding reasons to avoid him lately, which Eren has suspected to be weird, but he decided not to press it. She was a big girl, she had her own issues. She’ll figure it out and let him in when he was needed. So he didn’t pry—didn’t even bother asking about her day anymore but it almost always resulted in either 'tiring’ or complete silence. So he stopped trying.
Until he had to.
On a Sunday night when she stopped by for dinner as she always did after work, he insisted she’d stay the night. When she told him, frowning, I’m too tired to have sex, Eren, he told her he didn’t care about that. He didn’t want to have sex. He just needed her. So she stayed—but she was reluctant. And when they’d usually sleep huddled close together, limbs intertwined until he couldn’t decipher where he ended or she began—that night, she slept far from him on the edge of his bed. When he tried to turn over, tried to pretend he was asleep to drape an arm lazily across her figure, she jerked up, peeled his body away from her, and said ‘ I need the bathroom.’ After that, when she returned, they slept on their respective sides of the bed, opposite to each other, and Eren stopped trying.
Mikasa and him don’t fight. They’ve never fought.
Until then.
The Monday morning after she’d spent the night, Eren was in the kitchen making breakfast as he tried to convince himself that things would work themselves out. This was just another bump in the road that they’ll get over—whatever it is. This tension knotted between them will unravel and he’ll finally be able to tell her I love you again without being met with silence.
Mikasa stepped into the kitchen in his hoodie and her own shorts, nodding a greeting towards him—probably too tired to utter a proper good morning. Whatever. Eren nodded back, grabbed the bag of chocolate chips from the cabinet behind him, and mixed them into their breakfast. Chocolate chip pancakes—her favorite. A vague part of him worried, Am I trying too hard? But then, in the midst of him cooking the pancakes, she’d said it, and he’d thought, distinctly and in anguish, I didn’t try hard enough:
“I don't like this song anymore.”
He blinked at her. “What?”
Mikasa looked at him seriously, and it’s now when he notices the bags puffed underneath her obsidian eyes. How little had she slept last night? “Oursong,” she tried to clarify, though it only left him more confused.
“Do you want me to… turn on music, or something?”
Mikasa sighed tiredly—exasperatedly. “Remember how I told you that loving you was like listening to a catchy song? How it’s just simple and easy to love you?”
Eren nodded slowly. “Sure.”
Mikasa looked down, a bit bashful—a bit ashamed—a lot tired. “Well, our record must have gotten scratched. ” She vaguely gestured a hand between them and shook her head. “ This isn’t simple for me, Eren. It hasn’t been for a long time. ” She looked up at him and gave him a desperate look, as though asking do you see the point I’m trying to make?
Eren turned off the heat on the stove as he peered at Mikasa, redirecting all his attention to her as though she would suddenly change her mind if just listened. “What are you trying to say?”
“I want to try a different tune.”
Mikasa doesn’t beat around the bush. She’s someone who gets straight to the point—she doesn’t like acting unnecessarily cryptic, likes to avoid it because it’s just too pretentious for her. But in that moment, she’d said things which alluded to something bigger—scratched records, different tunes. All while trying to tell him, without being upfront, I can’t do this anymore. And that was how Eren knew, then, he didn’t try hard enough. That he’d lost her. He’d lost her a long time ago, but now it was real. Too real.
This isn’t simple for me, Eren. It hasn’t been for a long time.
I want to try a different tune.
That’s all he can remember. From then on, his memory blurs. He doesn’t want to have to envision what happens next—he wants to know what happens next. Did Mikasa cry? Did she yell? Did he ? How deep had her words cut him after that—did she explain, did he not try hard enough? All he can recall is the moment she threw her hands up, frustrated, tired, and said, “ I can’t,” before she left and slammed the door behind her—not even bothering to grab her stuff from his bedroom as she left. So after a while of pointless digging, Eren gives up and stops trying to remember.
(What he does remember, however, was when he had returned to his apartment after cutting his trip to the gym short from his inability to focus on his workout and found Mikasa leaving his apartment with a duffle bag full of her stuff. They stopped, and Mikasa looked a bit shocked, maybe, to find him home earlier than usual, but neither spoke up.
It seemed a bit like a break-up, but Eren didn’t want it to be, so he didn’t even acknowledge her as she walked away. Mikasa left, and he didn’t follow.)
-
Eren doesn’t stay in touch with a lot of his high school peers for a number of reasons, but he stays in touch with Historia for a few that he’ll admit to. At the stage in life in which he currently resides, far into his adulthood, it seems as though change isn’t to be expected anymore. It’s unlikely that he’ll meet new people to call friends, unlikely that his routine will change for anything or anyone, so he clings to his old friendships because, beyond them, he has nobody else.
A reason he stays in touch with Historia which he will not admit to involves him taking advantage of the fact that Historia is Mikasa’s roommate, which results in their messages reading:
Me: is she okay?
Historia: Yes, Eren. Mikasa is fine.
Historia: You should come talk to her one day.
The last message is where their conversations tend to end.
-
It takes him two months to cry.
Eight weeks after the fight—seven weeks after the break-up, he cries.
He wakes up to his phone alarm, scraping against his nerves like sandpaper, and yet the moment his eyelids part, he doesn’t care about making it to work on time anymore. Because as the sleep slithers away from him, his gaze is supplied with the sight of his hands clasped together, and that’s his undoing. That’s his breaking point.
Just as he and Mikasa would sleep with their fingers knotted together, Eren had tried to replicate the feel of her palm sliding against his, trying unconsciously to fill the gaping hole in his chest that he carved when he was nine, expecting her to always fill it. That is when the tears come—when it finally occurs to him who’s he’s lost. And as if his tears were all that was needed to provoke what he’s been repressing for weeks, his thoughts start to come all at once, running amok through his mind.
What made her think it was difficult to love him? Did he do something or was it his lack of actions which led to this? Had this breakup been something written into the fate of their relationship even when he was nine, when he swore to marry her, to make her his? Or did a sudden turn of events change the prospect of their relationship into something impossible?
Yet even with all these questions and doubts, even with all this anger and fear and resentment and love he feels, above all else, all Eren has is one question:
Why?
Mikasa’s apartment is a ten minute drive away from his own, and during these last eight weeks, he’s thought of visiting. He’s thought of stopping by—before he even properly processed his grief, he still thought of her, of seeing her, because she has taken up such an utterly significant role in his life that he sometimes still thinks of seeing her when he knows he shouldn’t. Because it’s always been her. Just as he’d told her that night, just months into their relationship, it’s always been you.
Now, with all these emotions bubbling underneath his skin, he moves as though if he doesn’t, then these feelings will overflow and he will lose himself to the power these sensations reign over him.
Fifteen minutes later, he is in front of her home, blinded by not only his sadness but his literal tears. Aching like a wound, his heart swells and swells until he fears it might burst right out of his chest. Ringing the doorbell, fighting back the tears, still in his pajamas at the ripe hour of 8am because he had work that morning and oh God his boss is going to have it out for him for being late but—
Distant footfalls drag him from his mind and he blinks, vision clearing, just as the door upon him swings open.
Mikasa stands on the other side, her hair longer than it had been when he last saw her—proof of the eight weeks they’ve been separated. Her onyx orbs take in his disheveled appearance, wide and questioning, but ever patient for him.
Eren has to choke back a sob before he opens his mouth, and his next works come out shaky and croaky, but Mikasa doesn’t seem to mind:
“I miss our song.”