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“There’s just no way.”
Eren had returned to her from running what seemed like a mile in order to catch the frisbee she had thrown. He had told her to give it her all--as if it was at all necessary. “How are you that good with your left?”
“What do you mean?” She says, winding up for another flick of the wrist. The goal was for her to throw it as far as she could, past where Eren was so he could run and catch it—as opposed to her just throwing it for him to catch where he stood.
“You quite literally threw it the same distance as when you used your right.” His hands were on his knees, panting.
“Yeah…and?”
He looks up at her. “Since when?”
“Since when what?” She says as she observes the engravings on the wooden saucer.
“Since when could you use both hands like that?”
“Forever, Eren. Since forever.” She brushes some of the dirt off of the frisbee. It was like that because it wasn’t caught by him.
“No.” He says doubtfully.
“Yes, Eren. I’m ambidextrous.”
He laughs to himself, shaking his shoulder-length hair. “No, it can’t be.”
“I’m not sure what else I can do to prove it. Want me to throw it again?” She readies herself.
“So you’re serious? It’s not just luck?”
“Yes, I’m serious.” She says, shifting her weight to the opposite leg.
Eren furrows his eyebrows, tapping a finger on his lip. “You definitely at least favor your right side. You use your right all the time. Like a rightie.”
“Not true.”
“It’s true! Even now! Up until this point you’ve been throwing the frisbee with your right.”
“Wrong. I’ve been throwing it using whichever hand I catch your throws with.”
“Exactly. Which has been your right.”
“No, it’s been both.”
It was just the two of them on the grassy field. After having rid Wall Maria of Titans, the scouts had a little bit more free time. Which in turn meant Eren and Mikasa had more time to do things together. This was one of them.
“You’re telling me this whole time. Almost a decade of me knowing you. You, Mikasa, have been ambidextrous.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she says as she tosses the saucer back and forth between her hands.
“Since birth just randomly? Or do you think it’s because you’re an Ackerman? Or you just taught yourself?” He questions, eyes following the frisbee.
“Probably some combination of the first two. I think I was born predisposed to mastering both hands, which may or may not have been influenced by my Ackerman blood. But it definitely became completely equal when I unlocked my abilities.”
Eren looks at her dumbfounded, and she can only sigh.
She’d never outright mentioned it to people. No one really asked and she wasn’t the type to go out of her way to inform or brag about this particular skill of hers. But still, it should’ve been noticeable—unless she really did have a subconscious preference. She didn’t think so. No, she’s sure of it.
“So even writing and eating?”
“Yep.”
“I gotta see this.”
“Alright.”
“Can you teach me?”
For most of their childhood, Eren had been jealous of Mikasa’s skills. But over time that jealousy melted into admiration. And with admiration came a willingness to learn. She was patient with him, and he came to truly appreciate that as he noticed how much others would treat him roughly and degrade his learning process. All of this was exacerbated especially after he became a Titan. But she, for some reason, stayed just as patient. And if he gave it a considerable amount of thought, became even more so.
“Sure,” she shrugs, “we can continue with this first. Catch it with your left.” She sends it flying.
“Wait, wait, wait!…” his left-hand fails to grasp the saucer. Miserably. “You did that on purpose,” he says and she acts blissfully unaware. He smirks, readying his hand to throw it back.
“I suggest not throwing it yet,” she says, putting a hand out in defense. “Just practice the throwing motion with your left hand. And when you want to throw, don’t throw it too far, cause you’ll throw it with less control. So do short distances first, then increase it.”
He recoils his arm then stretches it outwards, back and forth, just as she said. It’s an unfamiliar motion. After a short while of doing this, he thinks it’s enough.
“Go long!”
“I said short, Eren!” He extends his hand—too far—and the saucer flies behind him, hitting a tree with an abrupt thump. She slow-claps.
“I meant to do that.”
“Uh-huh.”
Next came eating. They went to the pantry of the scout base. “I wanted to make a fruit salad for when we all meet up before dinner. So you could practice with the fruit.” The 104th made it a habit to hang out in the common area of the barracks where they’d sometimes play cards and munch on pre-supper snacks. It was Mikasa’s turn to provide said snacks.
They sit side by side at the table, an assortment of the summer harvest in front of them.
“A butter knife, really, ” he says, twisting it in the air, its silver catching sunlight from the windows around them. “You’ll cut yourself otherwise. You’re using your left, remember?”
“But I can heal,” he says, reaching for her sharper tool.
“Okay, but you’ll still get blood on the fruit,” she says, sliding her knife away from him.
“Touché”
She then gestures for him to start cutting the hollowed-out melon. “And just because you can heal doesn’t mean you should be reckless with yourself. You can still feel pain.”
“You’re right.”
She was a little taken aback by his casual concurrence, and it made her think about just how far they’d come. Usually, her admonishment would be met with irritation but what was once considered as ‘nagging’ by him, grew to be understood as genuine concern. He seemed to notice his own change too, and hesitated before slicing into the green. She did the same besides him, switching her sharp knife for a butter one to be on the same playing field.
Eren slices at a slower speed, of course, and sighs loudly. He then has an idea.
“Hacking the fruit is cheating, go back to the slicing motion,” she says and he snickers. He’s hacking to a beat now. Bum-badum bum-bum badum bum-bum.
“ Eren,” she laughs.
“Well it’s making you laugh, so why should I stop?”
Pink tinges her cheeks without her permission, and she’s glad he isn’t looking. “I'm laughing at how bad you are.”
“Rooting for my failure, huh?” he says, and moves his knee to nudge hers. She immediately crosses the leg he touched over the other, caught off guard. He stops the beat, feeling he shouldn’t have done that. Maybe she gets tired of him like he gets tired of himself, he thinks. He goes back to slicing.
“You hold the knife tighter with your left, you should relax it a bit,” she says. He releases a bit of his hold, and his veins melt back into his hands. She finishes her chopping and a few moments later he finishes his. Hers turned out to be perfect melon cubes and his…parallelograms, to say the least.
His next task was to hull strawberries. He tries to find the right angle to puncture the fruit and awkwardly drags the knife in a circle, seeming to have forgotten he could just turn the strawberry instead of the knife. “You know with a stronger knife I’d be able to just turn the strawberry,” he says, giving her a side-eye. “Well that isn’t much practice, is it?”
As she watches his utter failure, a ridiculing smile grows on her face and she covers her mouth with the scarf to conceal it. Eren lightly drops the utensil on the table. Before she can question why, he hooks a finger under the scarf, pulling it away from her mouth. “Are you laughing at me?” This time she actually was.
“No, my nose was cold.”
“Mhm.”
He eventually gathers a rhythm and he’s not half bad. “Now go back to the melon and eat a slice like it’s a piece of steak. Here.” She hands him a fork.
“Oh this is weird,” he says, trying. He stops to watch her do it perfectly. “You know, now that I think about it, you never eat with your left when we sit together.”
“Because you’re a righty and I sit on your right side. It’s a manners thing," she says and he narrows his eyes but doesn’t challenge further.
Adjusting his knife placement, he cuts and takes a bite. “This steak is just. It’s delicious.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Probably could’ve used another minute on the skillet. Though I’m not sure that would help as it's, well, green.”
“Maybe the cow was sick,” she says and he laughs, making it even harder to cut the melon. She stops slicing her own to observe him more. “Yeah, this…definitely isn’t your strong suit.” He rolls his eyes, knowing it’s the truth.
Eren continues slicing and eating and it’s peaceful. Usually, they’d eat with the hustle and bustle of the scout regiment, which of course is always nice. But it’s also nice for it to just be the two of them. He wonders if this is what it’s like.
“Do you know what’s gonna be for supper tonight?” He eventually asks.
“I think that meatloaf thing.”
“Oh god.”
She laughs. “It’s not that bad.”
Writing was last for the day. They cleaned up the area and put the fruit in the fridge to cool for later. They then fetch a can of pencils and scrap paper and sit back down. “Before you rush into this, hold the pencil with your right.” He does so. “See? So that’s your natural position. Now,” she pauses and grabs another pencil and puts it into his left hand. “Mimic that same position here.” He twists his fingers so that both hands match. “You don’t have to write in the same exact way, but it’s a good starting point to familiarize the same muscles.”
His face contorts “it feels so strange,”
“Yeah, writing is usually the hardest for people.” He drags his hand along the sandy sheet, going painfully slow. She can hear his steady breathing. Time passes. She narrows her eyes and twists her head. “Mancala?”
“Hm?” He turns to look at her.
“What you wrote. That game?”
He rubs at his eyebrows and sighs. “Mikasa.”
“Sorry, was I wrong?”
“Mikasa is what it’s supposed to say.” Of all things to write, he wrote her name first. Even before his own.
“Oh.” Slowly but surely he begins to laugh and she can’t help but giggle a bit. And it’s nice.
Eren goes on to write more names and sentences at a snail's pace, and the struggle couldn’t be more present on his face. His eyes twitch, and his brows furrow. He puts so much concentration into things, leading to him putting so much pressure on himself in all aspects of his life, she thinks. She notices his hand again. “You can ease up, you know. You don’t have to hold it too tight. Like with the knife. Might get a cramp.”
“One is definitely in my future,” he says, stretching his fingers.
She observes the scrap paper and sees a bunch of ‘Mikasa’ and ‘Eren’ as well as their surnames and the names of their friends and his parents, albeit all hardly legible—so she isn’t entirely sure what she’s seeing.
He thinks about what to write next. “Do you remember your parents' names?”
“ oh.”
“Sorry, I…”
“No, no. Yeah, I do.” His eyes are on hers, earnest. “Seiko and Elias. Elias and Seiko. Those…were their names.” Their eyes hold one another, hugging in ways their arms are afraid to do. They release their embrace. He starts writing as she spells it out.
It had been a while since she said those names aloud. She vowed to remember everything she could about her parents, despite her memories of them slowly getting far away. She didn’t know others sought their remembrance too.
“They’d be proud,” he says. And his serious tone juxtaposes his childish scribble.
“Hm?”
“Of you.”
Oh.
There's silence, and Mikasa rolls a pencil back and forth. He realizes the atmosphere he created; he seeks to loosen it. “I mean you were able to put up with me for so long without getting tainted. That right there should’ve given you a badge of honor.” He says, thinking back to his wild and rambunctious self.
“You weren’t that bad. You were swee— swell.”
“I was swell,” he laughs, content.
Pride is foolish in this regard, she realizes. “You were sweet, actually.”
“Could’ve been sweeter sometimes” she points out to which he laughs “but sweet.” So sweet. She thinks back to the times when he’d cheer her up in the middle of the night when the night wasn’t kind. When he had stayed by her side so vigilantly when she was injured that time ago. And of course, the night that started it all, when he wrapped the scarf around her so gently. He was her lullaby.
As for Eren, well he had been called many things in his lifetime. Monster, Savior, Devil, God, but sweet? So simple, so rich, so kind, so sweet. He writes it. She watches.
She deserves to be treated sweetly, he thinks. To be loved sweetly, kissed sweetly. But his curse was anything but sweet. Neither were the scribbles that tried to write it.
He realizes he hasn’t responded, but she’s already speaking again. “An annoying thing about using your left is,” she picks up his hand, “this.” The infamous gray smudge. “Oh gosh,” he says. “Yeah, that’s why I don’t really use my left with writing.”— Wait.
“Aha! So there is one thing you definitely favor the right for.”
“Okay yeah, but that’s all. Everything else I’m equal.”
“Alrighty.” At that, she elbows him.
At the end of the day, the 104th all gather on the carpeted floor of the common room in the barracks-- sofas and couches all empty. Fruit salad in the center.
“Did you know that Armin?” Eren asks.
“I mean, I had noticed that she was really good no matter the hand or foot, but it seemed normal to me. It was kind of like ‘why wouldn’t she be’ you know. Cause she’s an Ackerman.” Armin then turned his attention to Mikasa. “So how’d he do?”
“Mm,” Mikasa takes a moment to gather her report. “For sports, I’d give him a five outta ten. We played frisbee and…yikes.”
“You’re exaggerating. She’s exaggerating,” Eren says. The room snickers.
“As for eating, well Eren’s not the tidiest eater in general and his utensil-handling is,” she teeters her hand “eh,” to which he scoffs. “So I’d have to measure against his default which wasn’t the greatest.” He narrows his eyes.
“Seven out of ten. Not too bad.” Eren actually looked pleased with that. Could’ve been worse. She continues. “Writing, a three.”
“Oh, Come. On. A three? ”
“Eren, even you couldn’t recognize your own name when I showed it to you a couple of hours later.” The crew giggled, Connie specifically covered his mouth, stifling a booming laugh.
Eren turns to him. “Over here acting like your regular handwriting isn't chicken scratch.”-- to which Connie puts his hands up: “Hey no judgment on my end, man.”
Eren sighs. “Fine. It’s fine. I mean It’s only been one day. If we keep at it for a few more weeks I know I’ll get better for sure,” he states. That’s right, she had forgotten this wasn’t just a one-day thing. “Anyway, I’m still just shocked. And she continuously denied it but I could’ve sworn that, even if she was ambidextrous, she at least had a favorite side,” he turns to face her “the right side. Which is why I wouldn’t have known.”
“I told you I don’t have a favorite.”
“I feel like I definitely would’ve noticed, had you been equal with it. I just can’t believe it took me this long to realize. There had to have been something behind it.”
“Well, it’s not like you to notice things,” Armin says, scratching his head. Sasha raised her eyebrows looking elsewhere.
“That’s just not true.” He turns away from Armin and towards the group, “Take eating, for example. I had told her that she only eats with her right hand because she does. I know because we sit next to each other. Preference right there. Boom.”
“And I told him that’s just me being spatially aware. He eats with the fork in his right and if I sit on his right side, I eat with my right because our elbows would clash otherwise.”
Everyone nods in agreement.
“Okay, and when you’re not sitting on my right side? Or sitting next to me at all?” —both a rare occurrence, the latter especially.
“Then I interchange.”
“O-kay.”
“I’m not lying, Eren.”
“No, no she’s right,” Sasha interjects, “I’ve definitely clashed elbows with her, and I’m a righty like you.” Mikasa gestures towards Sasha for Eren to see that her point was proven.
“Riiight.” He says. Then he thinks about it.
“…wait, no. That means you’re admitting you’re ambidextrous with everyone besides me. Because why are you eating with your left sitting at Sasha’s right when she’s a righty like me.”
“Because Sasha doesn’t spread her eating-arm out like an eagle.”
Armin’s pfft blends into a chuckle, joining the rest in their amusement.
“Oh you think you’re so funny, huh,” Eren says smiling, but he would from then on be mindful about how much space his arm takes up at the table with her. She gives him an innocent look.
While it’s true that Eren’s so-called wingspan was on the larger side, it wasn’t to the point where one would need to only use their right side with him. It’s just that Mikasa absent-mindedly did so, just in case they were to touch. Meaning that whenever she’d sit next to Eren, whoever was on her other side, and depending on their dominant hand, would simply have to deal with the possible clashing. Upon knowing all of this, Armin smiles.
Eren gives up. “Okay, whatever. I guess you're right then. You don’t favor the right side. Outside, of writing, of course,” he says.
Mikasa settles back, leaning onto her hands. Having had the day to reflect upon it, she realized she did indeed have a slight preference for the right. She brushed her teeth with her right, would raise her right hand in class, not to mention various other things outside of writing--which is a big one. So while becoming aware of this preference of hers did make her slightly irritated that he was sort of correct, it also felt nice knowing he had been paying attention all this time. She’d never admit that, of course.
A moment passes with Eren still deep in thought. He crosses a stretched-out leg over another, looking at her.
“It’s just strange to me because if you really don’t prefer the right…” Eren begins, leaning back against the sofa, all calm, cool, and collected.
“…then why is it the only side you kiss me on when you say goodnight?”
Sasha abruptly let out an "oh my god" to which she tried to stuff back into her throat. This happened as Armin broke out into a coughing fit, with Connie and Jean rendered silent, shocked at both what was said and who had said it.
History would tell everyone in the room that Eren truly didn’t mean to expose this and subsequently embarrass her because of his over-abundant density— given Eren’s self-awareness levels in terms of affection were life-threateningly low. But as time could mature a boy, it surely did for this one right here, the one who knew just what he had done. Mikasa figured this out by his lingering eye contact which eventually became too much for him and resulted in him looking elsewhere, still pretending he didn’t notice his friends’ profuse reactions.
He didn’t think too far ahead, though.
His desire to teasingly embarrass her must’ve clouded out the realization that many roundabout conjectures could be made based on the scenario. Because not only did what he say convey that she was giving him goodnight kisses, it also conveyed that he was gladly receiving them--and cared enough to notice a pattern of leftness and rightness.
But either way, it embarrassed Mikasa just the same. Got the job very much done. She was beet red.
The last thing she was expecting was for Eren to reveal this, given it was a routine that had remained unspoken about even between them, given the level of intimacy. So for him to pretty much legitimize their nighttime regimen by speaking it into existence for the first time, in front of everyone at that, was nothing short of shocking.
And what made it even worse, or maybe even better, was the fact that he knew exactly what he was doing. She naturally had many thoughts as a result of this. She wondered how long he had noticed her bias towards his right side—a bias to which she wasn’t even aware of. She wondered what this would mean now, now that everyone knows, and wonders if he knows what they'd inevitably assume. So yes, Mikasa had many thoughts. Many. But only one was everlasting: She was not going to let him get away with it.
Tongue-in-cheek, Mikasa takes a deep breath before walking her knees over to him. His eyes increasingly bulge with each knee-step she takes; he looks away to gain composure. Good.
She’s still just as red when she reaches him, and expects for her cheeks to be even more crimson given what she is about to do... but she doesn’t care. She turns his face towards her and begins to kiss him all over. Supplementing both sides.
The "oh my god" from Sasha could be heard yet again, but this time she makes no effort to silence it.
Mikasa first kisses his left and right eyebrow, then down to his left and right cheekbone, and lastly, she kisses his two cheeks. Left and right. By the very last kiss, even the ripest of cherries were jealous of Eren’s red hue. Her lips release with a smack.
“Was that ambidextrous enough for you?”
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