Work Text:
AFTERGLOW
The first time Mikasa saw him, he didn’t let her go.
Now... they are two souls lost in the blazing sunset, and with a promise that sealed their fate— it all that matters now. As the sun sets on the horizon and the sky turns darker, two people lost in different parallel lines meet in an intersection and finally let their souls combine.
And she did stay until the afterglow disappeared.
Words: 4,643
January 16-17, Rivamika Week 2021
Week 1: First Impressions
The first time Mikasa saw him after a year, he gazed at the ocean in the sunset, like it was some sort of spectacle that he seldom saw ever since he is just a soldier, victim, and casualty in that damned war.
Shades of fiery blues, reds, oranges, yellows, magentas, violets, and everything in between are seen in the sky as the sun sets on the horizon of the glistening depths the ocean. The birds were flying freely, as the cloudless sky made its way to be darker every second she was standing in the scene in front of her.
She didn’t move; she didn’t step back or walk away and let him be. But she just froze on her spot, the cold afternoon breeze allowing her longer raven hair flow through the wind. Her silver onyx eyes gazing upon the intense scene she didn’t notice about someone she calls her superior, her captain… and her family.
He was sitting on the cliff, the one they all looked upon when they saw the ocean five years ago like it was the most beautiful, breathtaking scenery she ever saw ever since Armin told her when she was a child. No — the ocean is truly magnificent, spectacular, and transcendent. It is a piece of mystery, an art that cannot be replicated just like the world itself; beautiful but truly cruel. The ocean is as majestic as it is relentless and hostile, something that Mikasa cannot grasp, and her mind cannot even comprehend the size.
But now… it was peace . Silent and calm, like the soft waves crashing on the sandy beach beneath the cliff. The panorama is as serene as ever, just like the first time she arrived here. And now, seeing the one she almost didn’t see after the war sitting on the edge, watching the sunset unfolding every second in front of him, made her wonder about him.
Where was he all this time? Is he hiding with the demons the same way she’s hiding hers too?
Not wanting to disturb his reposeful stature, she took a step backward— one, two, and when she took the third step, his head turned to look at her figure.
Levi was as placid as ever, not letting anyone know his emotions like it was some sort of mystery she needed to find its strings to understand what he felt or thought. But… strangely, she felt something akin to a familiarity— just like herself, and she was puzzled how everything is coming into pieces now.
He was her mirror . Now, she was staring at him like the face he was making now. Intrigued, baffled, and curious. Mikasa took a step forward as he slowly stood up, the sunset coming down on the horizon behind him, making his figure bathe in the colours that were so utterly too vivid and lively, contrasting to his almost lifeless and blank facial features.
“What are you doing here, Mikasa?” his voice was tight, his expression almost mirroring her now— she realises.
“I…” she stutters as Mikasa slowly strode forward, her steps small and flimsy. Now five feet away from him, she can see his features more clearly as a mirror.
They are like parallels, almost a similitude, and even their thoughts, goals, and emotions are analogous. Like synchronicity, the way their lives are connected— too similar in any way that it manifests too many coincidences that happened in their lives like they are somehow connected. It may be because they are Ackermans, but the way the coincidences are too much for her to bear and remember, that chances are he is her other half; her reflection.
Mikasa breathed, “It’s… this place,” she pauses as she looks at him with a crestfallen look on her face. “Where we saw the ocean for the first time.”
Levi gave a small sigh, turning his head to face the impending sunset on the horizon. “Yes. It’s years since we’ve lost them.”
She bit her lip, not wanting to let her tears fall from her woeful eyes. “I…” her voice strangled and sounded like it was breaking.
“I miss them.”
Levi didn’t turn his head, obviously masking his emotions the way he didn’t even react when one by one, her tears came down from her eyes like rain on a morning as the droplets grazed the earth. She sobbed, her voice muffled but small, and it was almost something she couldn’t even comprehend how.
She was crying in front of him, the first time since the war broke and ended. Her captain, her superior, her only remaining family from the bloodline that gifted her prowess. Her reflection, her parallel, her counterpart, and her mirror. Mikasa wanted to stop the tears from falling, but she couldn’t let it stop. She sobs, her painful moans faltering as she clenched her fists tighter.
Levi still— didn’t look back. He was still staring at the sunset, calmly and silently. Her emotions are in a dwindling daze, as she remembered everything that happened ever since the day the Colossal Titan broke in Shiganshina’s District and ended when she killed Eren— her savior, her lifeline, and her complete opposite counterpart that made the space in her vacant heart complete.
But he was gone. And peace followed, just like that. If she knew Eren would kill millions— billions of people all around the world just like that, she’d kill the boy who saved her that day and be done with it. But it can’t, it should be done, and she regrets everything.
“Mikasa,” Levi breathed, slowly turning to look at her miserable state.
“N-no. No. I regret— I regret everything Levi, I regret the deaths I faced and realising… I’m still alive and breathing, and they’re not.” she snapped, the tears are still falling from her eyes as her blurred vision scrutinises his face.
Levi was still as emotionless as ever— but behind his facade, she knew that he was keeping his emotions from showing in his features and coolly shrugged it away, and he did succeed.
“Mikasa.” he repeated, his voice is curt and solemn now, like an order she needed to follow, but she was not his officer anymore, and he was not his superior ever since everything ended. In the face of the earth and everyone else living, they are just survivors of war, veterans with an exceptional camaraderie, and two of the individuals that existed right now on this planet. Mikasa didn’t stop; she just cried and cried and let her emotions out like it had been kept in a pandora’s box all along and showed everything to him at this moment.
“We are cursed to live, Mikasa…” he began, his voice almost a whisper that is oddly strange to Mikasa, but she didn’t mind. “I saw death, and it was knocking on me before, but since I was still breathing,” he paused as he moved in front of her now, their bodies inches away.
“I also realised that I need to keep going.”
An arm wrapped around her shoulders as her eyes snapped open to see her captain hugging her. Her head was now situated on his broad shoulders, his hand holding her neck and ruffling his onyx strands softly.
She just stood there— not moving an inch, as her tears kept falling from her face down to his shirt. But he didn’t mind; he just stood there, holding her close and giving her the comfort she needed ever since he saved her that day in the forest. Levi rescued her too many times— not just physically but emotionally as he did everything in his power to stop her from being so reckless and precipitous that can potentially harm them all. And she trusted him, and he trusted her back.
“Fuck, I hate to see you cry, Mikasa. Stop crying,” he whispers into her ear softly, like it can be passed through the wind. But she didn’t stop and just kept on crying on his chest like a child. Just like a child, a child who knew nothing other than to fight and survive and… live .
How did she even survive a year without Eren? With Eren dead, her soul was deranged, incomplete, and vacant. She was almost soulless; her body was just a mere physical manifestation of her strength to survive. But not emotionally.
She was as hollow as it is empty. Mikasa Ackerman is just a character living and breathing but never alive. And now… she felt something akin to existing— she was sentient, animated, and almost different than a year ago.
Mikasa finally felt something other than hate and revenge— sorrow, despair, and misery. She was fucking depressed, and her soul is falling into the pits of void endlessly.
But with Levi hugging her and just with his mere comfort, she feels as if everything was perfect.
Like staring into the mirror, she knew her reflection was just broken as she was, but no— Levi is broken, but instead of showing it, he embraces her just like the way she wanted to embrace herself to cope up with the pain of desolation.
“Thank you…” she finally murmured into his chest, and just like that, her mind is in serenity.
Just like the afterglow of the sunset behind his back.
The second time Mikasa saw him after everything that happened before their embrace, he built a house on the cliff overlooking the ocean meticulously. There are workers all around the area, carpenters and helpers alike— but he was working on a window, nails digging into the wall with his hammer. His arms showing the years of expertise in killing Titans and people alike, and to this day, he was still as muscular as fuck, and she was becoming more feminine like a gushing maiden inside the walls.
He turned around, gazing at her figure like she was some ghost not meant to be seen. But his impassive stare still regarded her meticulously, and she knew what he wanted to say.
Why are you here?
Before he asks those words embedded in her head, she answers him. “I just wanted to see the sunset, Captain.”
Levi let go of the hammer into the floor, eyes scanning her inquisitively, and she just stood there, not flinching as she returned the stare towards him. He walks up towards her, his arms removing some sweat on his forehead from a day of working nonstop.
“I’m not your captain anymore, Mikasa,” he paused and lifted the cuffs of his white shirt towards his elbow. “Call me Levi,” he said, subtly fixing his parted bangs just like before.
He was sweaty and very much tired of the painstaking task called building a house. Levi was a hands-on worker, and not like because it was not Titans that he was dealing with at the moment, but probably this house is an extension of himself— a place to call home.
Not like her, who was drifting and just floating around like a ghost, she indeed needed a home to call to keep her from going astray. Home is a foreign word to Mikasa, and she didn’t even remember where it was situated before. Is it in the meadow with her parents in the outskirts of Shiganshina? In the Jaeger family’s house where Grisha and Carla took her in? She doesn’t know. All she knew that she was just alone, a forlorn piece of shit that is just a spectre, a spirit that was drifting around the lands of the earth.
“Levi…” she muttered, his name trailing in her lips like sweet candy. She always loves his name, just like she loves hers unconditionally. It was unique, and it suited them both.
He eyed her now, his eyes unreadable. “Mikasa,” he whispered as the wind ruffled her raven locks.
It was a windy, summer day in the middle of May, where the breeze is warm and cool coming from the ocean itself in front of them. She could see the glistening colours of blues, turquoises, and greens of the sea vividly now, cherishing the moment of tranquillity.
He moved and walked towards her as she felt the same thing, just like their embrace that sunset months ago. Mikasa shuddered, her breath hitching as a hand made its way towards her head. He patted her head gently like she would disappear into dust or shatter like glass.
“Live… Live for us. For me.” he whispers, as she now felt his warm breath tickling her chin. Mikasa stared at his silver-blue orbs, now darker, more like indigo, she notes. His face bathes in the afternoon sun, more tinted and pigmented— more vivid, real .
He was real. He was still breathing; his nose was still seeping some air into his lungs. Mikasa wondered how it felt to be real, to be alive... but now, she felt as if the world let her know that she was indeed real with a single touch.
“I’ll live…” she confesses, her voice croaked, and she mustered to say something to him. Something she felt ever since he embraced her that day.
Mikasa was certainly— alive .
“I’ll live for you, f-for them,” she muttered, and she could now see a small smile lit on his lips. She was perplexed at his emotion; like it was the most extraordinary thing she could witness. Levi was smiling at her, a smile that meant everything for Mikasa. It was hope, happiness, and assurance in one human gesture. Levi scarcely smiles, but when he does, everything feels like a daydream. Like the world is at peace and serene, just like the first time she saw him on the cliff months ago.
“You were good to me,” she whispers, eyes closing. “Ever since the day you saved me… I-I hated you before… but now I’m different. After everything I’ve done, I did wrongly in the past; you didn’t leave me. You’re still here and… you didn’t let me go.”
Feeling the tears wanting to fall towards her delicate cheeks, she steps back. She wanted to tell him everything— but she can’t. How? How can he say to the man who saved her too many times like she was some damsel in distress? She was The Girl worth a Hundred Soldiers, and she saved thousands of people and devoted herself for the sake of humanity rather than her selfish desires to stay with Eren. She was different now, just a woman who is loveless, alone, and despicable while floating and dying every single day.
“Mikasa…” he whispers her name softly for the second time, and she steps back, twice. Her eyes snapped open as she clutched her skirt tighter.
“I should go,” she said curtly and strode away, not wanting to look back at his figure. Mikasa wanted to know why she felt like this; why she even said those words to him? A mirror, he was her mirror, but she felt different.
Not wanting to dwell into her emotions even further, she shrugged off her thoughts and disappeared into the road leading to nothing.
The third time Mikasa saw him, he was sitting on the porch in his own house by the sea. She was with Annie, Pieck, Falco, and Jean, strolling around Paradis and looking all around the slowly healing land. Mikasa can see how sparse his large house is, without nothing, without any colours. It was lifeless, just like its owner sitting on the porch.
Mikasa wanted to hide and not wanting to see him again. But how can she not? He was her mirror, with a house, while she didn’t have anything. She knew that this house was not his home; it was just a lonely abode with a soulless owner— just like her. Remembering the words she told him a month ago, she was helpless. She was too tired… and desperate to feel things. To feel happiness, to feel love.
And she yearned for him once again. Yes, she craved for his embrace, his touch. And… she was scared. Too scared to feel, but she desires it.
“Captain Levi!” Jean called their former captain as they all greeted him at his house. Levi turned around, looking at them one by one until his eyes gazed into Mikasa.
She froze.
“Brats,” he muttered and stood up to face them impassively. “What the hell are you all doing here?”
It was Pieck who answered him. “We just wanted to check up on you, sir. We didn’t see you after a year.”
Annie uncharacteristically smiled, “And you built a house this big and…” her eyes darted around the building. She mused, “Monotonous.”
He huffed and turned around. “It’s not yet finished,” he said and beckoned them to go inside.
“Come.”
Mikasa silently followed them inside, like a lost kitten. She felt eyes piercing through her figure, and she looked up to see Levi still on the porch looking at her back with an unreadable gaze. She returns his stare with the same one, and he quickly tore his eyes away from her when Jean gave a loud, boisterous laugh further inside the house.
“This house is too clean, Captain!” Jean compliments as she strode inside, looking at the sparse building in astonishment. It was massive, but it was devoid of any colour. Like it was a house made for a couple, a family with the extended second floor up above. The kitchen is spacious, without any traces of human usage. Mikasa wondered if Levi really did live in this place or lived somewhere else since this house is not yet ‘finished’ as he pointed out.
If Levi made a house like this to be lonely and empty, why did he even make this in the first place? Well… if he was living by himself, he will just build a house fit for his necessities but—
An idea struck her mind, and she froze in the middle of the living room. She felt as if the world was a blur and everything around her in slow motion. Their voices muffled as she turned around to look at Levi, who was looking at her with a pleading look in his eyes.
Stay with me.
But she just kept silent, unmoving and baffled. Her lips tight shut, and she cannot say anything since she already blurted her thoughts a month ago, or even in that embrace in this very place.
As they all walked away from his house, she wanted to stay. But she can’t.
Because she’s weak, and indeed, if Levi was her mirror…
She knew he was weak, too. He was tired, weary, and lifeless. Just like the house he made, probably for him and her to call home.
But she doesn’t know how to stay.
The fourth time Mikasa saw him once again was through the farm inside Sina, where Historia resided with Ymir, Eren’s daughter. After almost a year of ignoring Historia’s mails to visit her, now she finally revisits the farm. She cannot look into Ymir’s green, emerald eyes without Eren appearing in her mind and reminding her of the child’s father that she loved not too long ago.
Her raven hair is longer now, and she didn’t want to cut it. She wanted it to grow and erase the traces of her past just to face the future. Mikasa is now a free woman, a woman worth of nothing, just drifting into oblivion. She was lost… and Levi certainly saw her, but she drifted once again.
Now… he was calmly looking at the sunset facing the mountains of Sina. The sun bathes his figure once again, just like the first time she saw him months ago on the cliff. The fall season now started to let her feel the afternoon sunset’s cold breeze, and she clutched her cardigan closer to her body.
Striding towards him, Mikasa stood beside him now and stared into the sunset silently. Her heart is beating fast, wanting to hide once again— but it’s enough. She desired to stay with him; she wanted to live in that soulless house and make it more like home, their home .
Mikasa wanted to stay. Stay beside him until the very end, until the end of their own lives into another. She wanted to live, live for him, live for everyone else she encountered that died so many years ago. They are both lost, miserable, and lonely, and they are just floating around the earth. She wanted to feel his touch again, his embrace, his warmth.
Mikasa wanted to feel alive.
“Levi,” she murmured his name and turned to look at his face. Millions of hues of gold, hazel, red, and oranges now bathed his face like a canvass. She gulped and wanted to find the right words to say to him out loud.
“I-I… I wanted to stay,” she said, and he finally turned to look at her. She was lost in his gaze, now full of emotions that she wanted to drown in it. His blue-indigo-coloured eyes glinted in the sunset’s bright warm hues, and she was caught in the moment of tranquillity he embedded at this moment.
Mikasa felt a tear escape into her eyes, but she didn’t mind it. She won’t be silent; she won’t let go of him now. He already knew that she was vulnerable, and she cannot hide it from him again. He was her mirror, and he deserves more than her worthless thoughts. She was supposed to be someone he can hold on with, his parallel, his equal. Mikasa wanted to save him again, and in return, he will protect her too. Just like the past…
“Mikasa,” he breathed. “Fuck, why did you become a crybaby?” he softly held her hand and caressed her palm. The hands that killed, the hand that was broken— just like hers.
She was indeed a crybaby.
“I can’— I can’t stop it, Levi…” she trembled.
“I’m here. I’m here with you. I won’t let go… Okay, I’ll hold you.” Levi held her hand now, and he embraced her again as her head fell into his shoulder.
Moments passed, and all she can hear was her muffled sobs in his chest as the wind blew around them while the grass moved subtly.
“I’m sick of being alone,” he muttered now, she opened her eyes to see the sunset now letting her world vivid. He continued, “Sick of waiting for a world that our comrades want. The afterglow of the war that they dreamt…” he paused, and hugged her closer. “But now, you’re here, with me. Still breathing… alive.” he said, his voice husky and now vulnerable. She finally closed her eyes and hugged him back now. Her arms are holding his body closer as she sobbed into his arms.
He continued, “Mikasa… I waited. I fucking waited to see you again… I cannot let myself drift away, just like you. Shit, we are both lost, and I wanted to let us stay,” he paused and caressed her raven locks. “Because you are someone important— I cannot let you go, just like them.”
Mikasa sobbed harder into his chest and felt everything vivid and real. His touch, his warmth, and his embrace felt like the missing puzzle to her life after everything that happened. She shuddered in his words, and the way he gently said it to her feels like she was loved and cared for by someone. Her mirror. He was her mirror.
She’s important to him. That is all that matters to her now.
“Don’t let go of me,” she murmured into his chest, and he nodded.
“I won’t. I won’t ever let you go, Mikasa,” he replied back, his voice oddly soft and gentle. She can now hear his heart beating inside his chest, reminding him that he was still alive. That she was alive and breathing.
She whispers, “Stay.”
I won’t. Two words.
Two words that made her want to live, to stay on the ground and not drift away. She imagines her life with him now, days of blazing sunsets, and warmth in that house beside the ocean. With the afterglow of the peace they attained, and their comrades devoted their lives with.
Peace. Freedom.
But the two words he muttered next made it more translucent. She admired him; his touch and soul bewitched her now. Mikasa wanted to say the words back— but it was enough.
Enough to make her stay and incandescently let him into her life.
“I promise.”
They are two souls lost in the blazing sunset, and with a promise that sealed their fate— it all that matters now. As the sun sets on the horizon and the sky turns darker, two people lost in different parallel lines meet in an intersection and finally let their souls combine.
He was her mirror. And he never let her go.
As the hues of the sunset’s afterglow appeared on the sky, she stayed.
The last time Mikasa saw him on the sunset on the cliff, he was already gone. An apparition that her old mind conjured, with her final goodbye she mustered facing the dusk on one summer afternoon where he first embraced her 57 years ago.
Mikasa Ackerman smiled at their memories, the past they shared, and every colour embedded in her blurry memories became vivid.
Real. She was real as the colours scattered along the sky. He was, too.
And she lost track of time.
“Wait for me,” she whispered as the wind let her words flow into the sky. Smiling gratefully, she closed her eyes as she took a breath for the last time before her lungs stop to let the air seep into her nose.
“See you soon, Levi…” she murmured.
The afternoon glow of the sunset bathes her sitting figure in the porch of their old house, the one he made for her to stay. Where they both let their hearts collide and built something undeniably strong and cannot be broken.
With a smile on her face, Mikasa felt the warmth of the sunset for the last time. In their house, in her home, and where she saw him the first time decades ago. She thinks of the family they made in this place, their children, their grandchildren, the one who passed and stayed. The seasons of summer, spring, autumn, fall, and winter happened in her lifetime, as Levi gave her the will to see the world’s beauty with her own eyes. Their friends, their comrades who died long ago… Armin and Eren. Her first family. Her first love.
She can finally see them again.
If she could turn back the time, she wanted to see Levi on the cliff again. Maybe in another life, she’ll hug him back and let their hearts unite. Maybe in another life… she’ll meet him again in peace. Without the obstacles, they shared along the way...
And finally. She’ll drift away to where he waited for her.
For the last time.
A woman arrived at their house where the most beautiful sunset can be seen in the middle of the summer month of May and noticed how silent and calm it was. Walking into the porch, she saw Mikasa sitting on her favourite rocking chair, facing the sunset’s everlasting magnificent scenery on the ocean’s horizon. Her eternally beautiful face, bathed in the sunset’s afterglow with the million shades of yellows, purples, pinks, blues, violets, and browns; silver-onyx eyes that are now forever closed, with a serene smile on her face as the light dances in her features.
The last time Naomi Ackerman saw her mother’s face with a smile like that, is where her mother looks at her father lovingly. And he, too, is now forever gone into the horizon.
When the sky turns dark, and the colours disappear from the afterglow, they find each other once again.