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Mikasa takes back just inches, still brushing their noses together. Kissing Eren always feels so different with each chaste. Like waiting for the magician to reveal what's inside their hat, is there a bunny? A pigeon? Or even nothing to find out? Either way and anyway, it still brings such a surprise to her. It's the first of January, she recalls, they just kissed as the usual culture on when the clock strikes twelve, the fireworks flew to the sky, spreading their wonderful majestic colors as people share a kiss to welcome the fresh beginning, which really felt mandatory to do.
With her eyes still closed and her mouth curves upward forming into a sheepish smile, glints of multi bright colors still creep under her eyelids, the sparklers are still all over the sky, she thinks.
But why doesn't she hear a ‘pop’? Or any explosion sound that tells her the same as her closed eye vision?
She opens the pair only to find no Eren, no bench at the park where they just sat, and no other human being whom some minutes ago she just saw and were attending a festivity for the start of a New Year with her and her loved ones.
She turns her face to the left, finding out that the sources of sparks were not fireworks, but a burst of a bright beam from the ground, spreading and spraying all over the sky, it forms an aurora, those northern lights she could only see through her TV screen.
Her hands automatically fell to her sides, feeling infinitesimal microscopic marbles of dirt beneath her, only to find that they were... sands?
Everything doesn't make sense. Mikasa can't think of a single reason why she's here, how can she possibly physically be somewhere she doesn't know could exist. She was just with Eren, they were just celebrating New Year. Tears start prickling from her tear ducts, one hand closing her mouth, muffling sobs can be heard as she keeps on recollecting the things she just did today. Nothing makes sense.
"Mikasa..."
Her head snaps to the sound of home, finding her spouse, not in his latest clothes standing behind her, arms in his pocket, hair straight to the shoulders, and was set to let loose. That's Eren, her eyes won't lie to her.
But that's not her husband.
The person standing—now in front of her, looks exactly the same. His brown dark hair, those forest green eyes, his pointed nose she used to kiss, everything screams the fact that he's Eren Jaeger, her half soul.
But there is something in his eyes, and there is something in the way he looks at her, with longing and yearning, and even if her vision were blurred with her spilled tears, she sees through him as clear as day and she is certainly sure this man is he not the man she ties her life with.
"W-who... are you?" She asks. Even when her whole being tried to show no emotion, a stutter still came out from her, unsuccessfully pressing her dreadness.
"I'm Eren."
I know that. She thinks. What question could she possibly ask that can answer all of her worries and mysteries? Thousands of queries running around her head making her dizzy with each new information and another unsolved riddle.
"You're not my husband," she continues.
"And you were never my wife," he laughs, bitterly. Shaking his head as he lowers his gaze, staring at the sands—covering the entire area.
"Where am I?" She asks, praying for a logical answer to her situation.
"In Paths."
"I don't understand."
"I just wanted to see you."
There's a pain in each syllable he pulled. Still directing his eyes to his shoes and not being able to meet her gazes, afraid there's something bad he would do. Afraid he'll break her. Afraid he'll hurt her, just like what he did all this time. He hurt his own timeline's Mikasa. There's no way he will let himself do it all over again to another her.
This Mikasa standing in front of her was something he purely didn’t know he was capable of meeting or recreating. But for all that is fair, nothing really makes sense in his reality, the only thing that keeps him steady was his true north, and it was Mikasa all along.
So in the ways of Paths, he created another life, for him and her, where it looks like it’s centuries to come and to see, far away from Ymir’s curse, far away from the horrible things that had happened to them in this life. So he creates a new timeline, where he could kiss her whenever he wants, where he could be more vocal in everything he does, where all of the things, even each atom of it, are a declaration of his love for her.
And here she is, another Mikasa—the creation of him, by the fragments of memories of her, sitting in the sand, looking at him with so many inquiries.
Mikasa stands to her feet, as gracefully as ever, slowly approaching the only figure in the splayed sands and eos. This Eren seems so young, around a college student age. Her hand reaches out to place her palm on his cheek, thumb fumbling just below his eyes, where dark circles form.
"Are you happy?" A matter was thrown from him, and with that, his eyes went watery, tears spilling and running down to ghostly kiss her reached out a hand.
She nods with a simple smile, "I am. I'm married to you."
And that seems to make him let out a shaky laugh.
"You're not," he explained, "you're married to another me."
"It's still you."
"Well yeah, still a stubborn loser."
"Hey! That's my husband you're talking about."
And he laughs again, more carefree than before. It makes Mikasa's entire body shivers with happiness.
"I think you should go back."
He tilts his head to the beam of light. Telling her to walk into the aurora's source direction. She walks towards Eren, taking him by the hand.
"I'm assuming, and this would sound crazy," she analyzes, "you're another Eren."
Now it's his time to nod, confirming her judgment.
"Can I ask the existence and the presence of another me?"
He stares into the wide dark glowing sky. Strands of green and white and blue hovering above them. She could imagine the reflection on his teal green ones, beautiful.
"Flying, right to left, with swords in her hand."
Okay, that seems to confuse her brain even more.
"And why are you not by her side?"
The interrogation makes him look in her way. There they are, those eyes again.
"I can't be. It will only hurt her."
His response made her frown, she doesn't like where the topic is heading but continues anyway.
"So, we're not together in your universe?"
She was countered with a shake by his head, and a tiny part of her died by his replication.
Standing two steps from the core of the “Paths", Mikasa is astonished by the fact that they haven't gone blind just by looking at the white bursting light.
"We're here."
It's so funny, and she doesn't know why. But them standing next to each other, looking for something beyond them, unanswered questions lingering in the air, felt like those kinds of separations and goodbyes after the first dates, even if the place is far adequate to call as a date. However, the crazy part of her can imagine a picnic there, just cuddling and laying on the sand, staring at the endless roaming verdant and blue and white strikes that wander in the sky.
"I'm happy you're doing fine, Mikasa."
And he smiles, so genuinely, and so kind, and he feels like home.
"And I hope you are too, Eren."
And she means it, wholeheartedly, with every piece in her she prays that he is doing fine.
"I'll try."
She takes another step closer to the light, Eren doesn't follow her. So she lets go of her hold on him.
"I'm so glad I could see you."
The words stung her heart. Mikasa tries with all of her being not to shed another tear, afraid of ruining the moment and hurting Eren in some way.
"I feel the same way."
She takes a deep breath and could hear a buzz from the ray, a faint sound of people chatting, and a familiar voice calling her name. This is the way back. Back to her one and only, and to her lover's hand, maybe continue kissing for another couple of minutes, watching all the fireworks lit up and disappear.
"It's funny how in two different worlds, we still bound to meet each other," she comments, trying to say something for Eren, and herself.
"And I think, how many universes there are, how many possibilities that were shown, we'll always be with each other, Eren."
Her heart aches to see his expression, there's a glimmer of hope in the pool and glassy of his eyes, and that encourages her to continue.
"So if in this universe, things go south, and we didn't work out,"
She prays to whatever god in any place hears her and commands her to wish.
"We'll be together in another one, in the chances of one-to-infinity. We'll find each other again, I assure you that."
She has no idea he’ll always going to make that happen, and if it’s not in this life, he’ll make up to her in the billion of others.
And now he's smiling, and she just wants to hug him, but afraid she'll stay here forever, because at the end of the day, any Eren Jaeger is still Eren Jaeger, and she's glued hip to hip with him. Her heart is latched and stitched to his own, and she knows each word and sentence that she just said is true because just like this Eren, she too will find any way to see the love of her life again.
"You should go." Eren despatches.
And with a steady nod, she turns around and disappears. Into the arm of her husband, her home.
Mikasa doesn't remember anything, she just knows she kissed Eren when midnight comes, celebrating the very annual New Year's Eve. And no other memory fill her brain.
But Eren will remember, her words carved to his brain, each word, and sentence tattooed to his heart. He knows. And he's never been so sure of anything than this—even with the ability to see the future. That he'll find Mikasa again, anywhere, anytime, anyway and they'll fall in love again. And so he keeps moving forward. Marching and stepping on all the living beings beneath the gigantic bones until he feels an explosion within him.