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“Mikasa, could you cut my hair?”
Mikasa blinks and looks up from what she’s doing, and sees Eren’s broad silhouette framed by the late afternoon sun standing over her, his long hair unfurling in the wind.
She’s kneeling next to a patch of soil, a home to her burgeoning vegetable garden. She has some potatoes, carrots, leeks, and tomatoes in there along with some herbs: all the makings of a good stew, something warm and hearty for the two of them when the winter months seep in.
She clambers to her feet and brushes the soil off her hands using her skirt. The sight makes Eren smile.
“How do you want me to cut it?”
Eren sheepishly rubs the back of his head, his fingers carding through his dark brown hair that now falls around his shoulders, his cheeks turning rosy as he ruminates on his answer.
“Short,” he decides after a moment.
“Like when we were kids?”
“Yeah,” he swallows, smiling faintly, no doubt a blizzard of memories catching him off guard. Of childhood. Shiganshina. Of him and Armin and Mikasa. Together. “Like when were kids.”
Mikasa gets her things ready then: all she needs are scissors and a shaving knife. She sets the knife against a whet stone so that it’s sharp, then prepares some water to wash his hair. Eren watches her from their kitchen table, fingers tapping against the woodwork. Pensive.
“Are you sure you’re ok with cutting it?”
“Of course,” She answers softly, bemused at the query. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Eren looks away from a moment, thinking and pondering, blushing a little before laughing. It’s a wonderful sound, she thinks.
“It’s just—you haven’t cut my hair since we were 15. And now it’s so long,” he pulls some lengths between his fingers as if to demonstrate. “And I know you like it long, too.”
“Eren,” she scolds, playfully nudging him on the shoulder. He laughs again and takes her in his arms, spinning her as if they were dancing. The echoes of his laughter rattle against their homemade wood furnishings… And again, she thinks that this is everything she could ever have wanted.
Quickly, she pries him off her—much to Eren’s chagrin—and picks up the basin of warm water that she had set aside. She leads him outside and makes him sit on a chair, slipping his shirt off and draping a towel over his shoulders in the process; he insisted on having his hair cut outdoors, because he knew that they’d be finding stray strands for many months to come if they didn’t.
“Head back,” she urges sweetly, gently cupping his jaw and moving him back to the point where his hair hangs over the crest rail and she can see his closed eyes, his long eyelashes. With her fingers she tenderly traces the smooth edges of his face, his facial features smoothing out when she does so. From the forehead she pulls his hair back, brushing through the brown lengths with a comb and quietly relishing whenever he hums in pleasure. It’s smooth and silky under her touch; a product of the homemade soap that she was at pains to make and Mikasa almost regrets telling him that she’d cut his hair, because it really was so nice at this length.
“Ready?” she asks, tying his hair at the nape with a band, trying to gather as many loose ends together as she can before placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. From below her Eren gives a short affirmative nod and breathes through his nose as if steadying himself. This was a big change after all, she supposes.
The knife easily cuts through his hair and Eren releases a sigh, his shoulders subtly sagging, as if a weight was lifted. It was like he had been holding it in. She takes the notch of hair and places it aside in case he wants to have it as a keep-sake, a reminder of days gone by, of the past. She shakes her head— quickly puts that thought aside and brushes his hair back again before fetching a few cups of water from the basin and pouring them over his head; rivulets washing down his face and onto his torso, drops of water falling from his newly cropped hair down to her feet.
He wants her to use that handmade soap again, so she does. He likes it a lot and it’s no wonder. It smells like lavender, the flowers that aunt Carla often kept. It smells of their old and new homes, their old and new lives.
Lightly she presses her fingers into his scalp, massaging in the soap with a firm touch, gathering the soap in her hands and passing it through the ends of his shortened hair with a tenderness that Eren often thought was innate to her. Then, she finishes, finally rinsing the residual soap from his hair—suds and bubbles wetting her skirt in the process when she pours the remainder of the basin over his head, before drying it off with a towel and combing it back. It’s uneven so far, but she can fix that.
“That feels… better,” he murmurs—a certain lightness in his voice that she hasn’t heard before. Or at least, she hasn’t heard in a while. “Thank you.”
Her lips quirk up at the comment because she just can't help it, all whilst her fingers run through the wet strands of hair as she combs it back, sectioning it appropriately so she knows where to cut and how to cut it. “Don’t thank me yet,” she takes the first snip from his crown and it looks fine, so she continues clipping the surrounding hairs to a similar length. “I might make it worse.”
Eren hums and the mood suddenly turns somber when he doesn’t reply right away.
“You could never make anything worse, Mikasa.”
Mikasa huffs at his comment; resisting the urge to swivel around in front of him for a kiss. Or perhaps to tell him off because that was a ridiculous statement, but she doesn’t. Instead she keeps cutting away in their mutual silence, the only sounds surrounding them being the muted snip snip snip and the river running not far away.
“You think too highly of me,” she muses quietly after a few moments, stepping close to the back of the chair and scratching his scalp affectionately. Her wet palms come to a rest on his bare shoulders.They rest there for a moment before Eren slowly guides one of her hands into his. Delicately, chastely, he presses his lips to her palm in a sequence of feather light kisses, and then to her knuckles, his lips against bone.
“How could I not,” he whispers against them, pressing another firm kiss to the back of her hand. “You’re here with me.”
A sigh escapes her as her hand slips out of his hold and she bends to press a kiss to his crown, her nose delicately nestled in the wet tangles as she sighs against his scalp.
When she pulls back after a moment she continues to cut. There is not much left now: the strands have gotten shorter and shorter and fall away til they’re underfoot or sticking to Eren’s shoulders, the hair of his neckline and his sides now delicately sheared away with Mikasa’s shaving knife.
“Finished.”
Eren stays put whilst Mikasa goes to fetch a hand mirror, feet tip tapping against the gravel as he waits impatiently. He runs his fingers through the short length and grazes his fingertips across the shaved back and sides, enjoying how they feel under his appendages.
When Mikasa returns she stands in front of him and shows the finished result, handing it over so that he can properly look at the sides. He gleams up at her then, eyes warm and shiny. Loving. He looks happy and healthy… and that’s all she could possibly want.
Eren slips his hands about her waist, pulling her to him gently so that she can stand between his legs. Hands find the curve of his jaw naturally, palming upwards to wipe the residue of hair away from his eyes.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes,” he breathes—sounding incredibly relieved as he rises to his feet in front of her, his larger hands slipping from her waist to cover her own on his cheeks. “I really do.”
They fall into each other, neatly nestled in their own embrace: Mikasa’s ear pressed to his chest, his chin resting atop her head, hands slipping into the fabric of her sweater and fingers twining with her long hair as the world goes on around them, her arms laced around his neck.
“Your hair has gotten so long,” he murmurs against her scalp after a few beats, his lips against the dark strands. Mikasa hums in agreement with him.
“I should really cut it.”
“I could do it for you.”
Now, that makes Mikasa laugh, breaths coming quickly against Eren’s collarbone. She peaks up and finds him looking at her fondly through half lidded eyes, just before he breaks into a grin himself.
“I should stick to hunting, huh?”
“Yes, Eren.”
They separate then, chatting amongst themselves as the sun begins to dip. Mikasa tidies her things away, tucks them under her arm, and Eren pulls his shirt back on.
“If you aren’t going to let me cut your hair, then at least let me make you dinner,” he offers, arms encircling her from behind, resting on her abdomen, rocking them from side to side as if at sea. “You saw that salmon I caught this morning.”
Mikasa snorts at that and leans back into his chest: how could she refuse such an offer. Salmon was her favourite and it was a big salmon at that. It would feed them for a few days, maybe they could even smoke it.
“Alright,” she replies, quickly spinning on her heels to jut a finger in his face. “But I can’t let you do all the work. At least let me make fillets.”
Without even a thought he leans and kisses her squarely on the lips, eyes slipping closed and lingering for mere moments against Mikasa’s mouth. Carefully, he brushes a stray strand of black hair behind her ear as he pulls away, taking her by the hand and beginning to lead her back inside.
“Ok, you can help,” he says with a gentle squeeze. “It’ll be a feast for two. A celebration of my new hair.”
Mikasa smiles again, and she laughs and it feels nice to be so carefree and to laugh at small stupid jokes. At the threshold of the door to their home, she leans up to kiss him again, carding her fingers through his hair, words of jubilation play on her lips as they brush against his:
“Here’s to new beginnings.”