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Sasha thought that, if she listened hard enough, she could hear the neon signs in each closed storefront buzzing. She stopped walking for a minute, looking into the window at a particularly garish bit of lettering.
Something stopped on the sidewalk behind her.
She guessed that it was a couple hundred feet away, and when she turned her head all she could see was a dim outline of someone. Square shoulders, long arms, bulky. At least a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier than her. She started to walk forward again, ignoring her shaking legs and hearing only her heartbeat.
Walking faster, Sasha could hear the footsteps now, soft and solid on the pavement and she reached around to the pockets of her jeans, looking for her phone.
“Shit,” she whispered, not feeling its telltale weight in the pockets of her hoodie. She must have left it at Jean’s house, or on the bus, or really anywhere; she was always leaving it somewhere and enjoyed the wild hunt to find it again. There was no time for that.
Berating herself silently, Sasha tried to make her walk look as confident as possible, pulling her shoulders back and increasing the length of her strides.
The footsteps got louder.
In the distance she could see a white light, like a small house made of glass… Did they even have phone booths in Trost anymore? Sasha didn’t let herself consider the question. She just walked towards it.
Looking behind her, she only saw a glimpse of the man, only fifty feet behind her now but not speeding up.
She reached the phone booth and backed into it, locking the door with shaking fingers. Reaching for the phone, she pulled out two quarters and dialed, her fingers slipping and punching the wrong numbers but it rang, and she clutched the phone with both hands as she listened to it ring.
“Hello?”
The voice was higher than her friend’s and much less energetic, but she tried anyways.
“...Connie?”
There was a silence. “No. You have the wrong number. Sorry. Goo-”
Sasha’s entire body was reverberating, adrenaline and fear coursing through her and she cut off the voice on the other end of the line.
“No, please, please, please, no, don’t hang up, I need help.”
Another pause.
“What’s going on?”
“I-I’m walking home from a friend’s house and there’s this man following me and I’ve locked myself in this phone booth and I-”
“Where are you?”
“Uh-Um… I-I don’t really know how to explain it, it’s a couple blocks away from-”
“I’ll find you.” Sasha could hear a door slamming and a car door opening, both reduced to static thumps through the phone. “There’s only a couple phone booths. Are you across from the post office?”
She looked across the street, squinting through the reflections on the glass. “Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in five.” The tinny roar of an engine starting, followed by wind whipping through the windows, blowing into the cell phone of whoever she was talking to.
“How will… Will I know it’s you?”
“Red scarf. Stay on the line. I’m going to put my phone down to drive but keep talking. If something happens, don’t hang up.”
Sasha does what she says, babbling into the phone about how she should have taken the bus and why hadn’t she noticed earlier. She could see headlights approaching from a couple blocks away, cutting through the dingy streets and Sasha started to just repeat “I can see you. I can see you,” hoping she wasn’t wrong.
The car pulled up to the sidewalk just in front of the phone booth. A woman got out of the driver’s side and slammed the door behind her. She walked past the phone booth and Sasha thought no, this wasn’t the person she was waiting for. But she tugged her scarf tighter around her face and looked into the phone booth. The woman kept walking and Sasha was just breathing into the phone, fingers aching around the plastic.
She could hear muffled voices, one raising in volume until it was just a yell, and as she turned to look, the man was falling to the ground, the woman standing over him and grasping his hands, bending his fingers backwards as he groaned. Blood ran down from his nose.
The woman let go of his hand and he fell to the sidewalk, groaning and writhing in pain as she walked towards the phone booth.
Sasha unlocked the door.
The woman looked at her hands. She looked down too, and saw the phone still clutched between them. She hung it up and stepped forward.
As she opened her mouth to say thank you, she looked at Sasha fiercely and moved away, opening the passenger door of her car.
Sasha got in. The car was very clean; nothing crunched under her feet as she got in, no dust on the dashboard or console. She felt something under herself, and felt around until she pulled out a cell phone, flashing a call ended screen.
The woman got in the car and twisted the key still in the ignition. Sasha held the phone out in front of her. She tucked it in the pocket of her hoodie.
“Where are you headed?”
Sasha gave her the address and vague directions, pointing at the street signs as they drive.
When they pulled up outside her apartment, Sasha stayed sitting in the car. The woman looked over at her.
“Is this not where you live?”
Sasha looked at her, so many things about to come out of her mouth; she wants to say how relieved she is, how lucky that she called her by accident since how much help would Connie have been really, that she is so thankful.
“What’s your name?”
The woman tugged at her scarf. It’s a beautiful color, Sasha thinks. A deep, clear red. She wonders what it looks like in the light.
“Mikasa. And you are?”
She smiled, echoing the name over her lips, liking the way her mouth pops over the K.
“Sasha.”
“Are you alright, Sasha?”
Sasha knows Mikasa will know if she lies. Her eyes burned with need to hear any sort of answer.
“I don’t really know.”
Mikasa nodded, pulling the car into a parking space.
“Can I come in?”
Sasha opened her door, beckoning for Mikasa to follow.
She fumbled with the keys, finally opening the door and stepping inside.
“Mikasa es-”
“Do you know how many times I’ve heard that joke?”
“-su casa.” Sasha smiled.
Mikasa stays late into the morning, smiling little quick smiles as Sasha recounted everything that she’d seen her do in as much detail as she could.
“So I turn and then he, like, just dropped to the ground. And you’re standing over him like some sort of warrior princess, like, going apeshit twisting his fingers like they’re fucking putty or something. It was sick, dude!”
Sasha puts another cracker, spilling crumbs down the front of her shirt.
“And like, Connie can fight but not anything like that. I’m glad I was shaking so bad and messed up his number.”
“Why didn’t you hang up and redial?”
Mikasa looks like she knows why. Sasha answers anyways.
“It just… I was too scared. I just needed someone, and it didn’t have to be him.”
They both nod. Mikasa goes to stand, stretching her legs and looking at her phone.
“I should go. It’s late and you need to sleep.”
“And you don’t?” Sasha jokes, but Mikasa gives her a look she doesn’t really understand.
When they reach the door of her apartment, Sasha thinks for a moment before deciding that that won’t get her anywhere and asks for Mikasa’s number.
“You’ll be able to reach me when you need me.”
After the door shuts, Sasha thinks about calling Connie and telling him all about this before remembering that she doesn’t have her phone, and that’s what got her into this in the first place. She brushes her teeth and lies in bed, thinking about red scarves and strength and Mikasa’s little smile, never showing teeth.
Sasha finds her phone wedged in the bushes outside Jean’s place. It’s dead, and she heads back into Jean’s house to charge it.
After she can finally turn it on, she writes down every possible flub of Connie’s number and, setting up camp at Jean’s kitchen table, starts calling all of them. When she’s halfway down the list, Jean finally asks her just what the hell she’s doing.
When she tells him the story about Mikasa he blanches and then blushes so furiously Sasha can’t dial the phone, she’s laughing too hard.
He refuses to extrapolate on his reaction, though. Sasha pretends that she doesn’t notice him sticking nearby though; leaning on the door frame, making excuses to come back into the room, and lingering a bit longer than he needs to.
When Sasha is about to cross off the third to last phone number on her list, she hears a familiar “Hello?”
“Looks like I need you again.” Sasha grins and she’s sure Mikasa can hear it in her voice.
“Are you stalking me? I would’ve thought, of all people, you would know that’s not okay.”
“I’m not stalking you! Though my friend Jean here…”
Mikasa groans.
Sasha circles the number on the paper and says goodbye, Mikasa sighing before hanging up.
She doesn’t give Mikasa’s number to Jean, no matter how many delicious things he bribes her with. She promises herself that she’ll only call Mikasa when she needs her.
Sasha leaves Jean’s, bringing up her text conversation with Connie.
im going to call you and it's gonna be a long story.