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“What am I to you, Mikasa?”
“Huh?”
Mikasa is a soldier, her hands and heart and soul stained with blood she will never wash away. She’s watched people die, her heart has been stained and beaten by malice, yet she never faltered, never wavered in front of any battle.
Until now, until that question. Quite a simple one really, she’d be lying if she claimed she’s never dreamt about it before. But the world is cruel, so she always buried and choked down that dream. By now she’s forgotten how to speak softly without cries and screams and gunfire deafening her. To confess a truth buried deep inside and not fearing of being torn apart by its sharp edges.
Her cheeks are flushed pink and her throat is clogged, a cage for the reply she can’t set free. Can Eren not see it in her eyes?
His own hold the reflection of her despair, multiplied a million times. She’s never seen him like that. She didn’t know he ached like she did.
I do, his eyes are saying. It hurts so much to love.
A message she was already familiar with. He’s leaning in like he can’t help it, like she’s drawing him closer, and she wants that. She wants his arms around her, his comforting warmth. She’s empty without it.
Can he not see it? Can he not pretend she said it already?
“You’re…”
He deserves to know. She has to let him know.
She can’t. Her tongue is tied, invisible walls sprout and lift around her and it’s as if she’s watching her own body from afar, listening to herself saying “you’re family.”
The voice doesn’t sound like it’s hers.
They both know it’s a lie yet Eren pulls back, forcefully resisting that pull they’ve never acknowledged out loud, the one she now knows he feels too. The spark of hope is gone from his eyes. They’re two soldiers again during the interlude of their war, pretending that they’ll both return home safely.
Eren doesn’t smile anymore. Mikasa doesn’t know what that means but her heart clenches whenever she turns to him and is met with a frown where once a grin bloomed. A promise that everything could be okay again, a mirror of afternoons under the tree, with grass as their mattress and birdsong flooding their ears.
Mikasa wants him to smile again, to give her that wordless promise that the two of them will meet under their tree again. She aches for it, even if it’s a lie.
The refugee has invited them all to his tent. Eren was the first to try the drink he offered, strong and sharp. After that, the rest followed and they kept drinking, dutifully following the pace he'd set. Soon, they're humming tunes and lurching in a way which would have had Levi roll his eyes back into his skull if he could see them.
Mikasa has left her cup somewhere, she doesn't know where and she doesn't plan to look for it. She takes Eren's cup from his hand. Maybe she snatched it or he offered it to her willingly, she isn't sure. Its jagged edges dig into her lip when she drinks.
Sasha is clumsily perched on Connie and Jean's shoulders as they spin around, shouting and singing. Armin is giddy, his own cup refilled for the umpteenth time. He's singing with Eren, one of the sea shanties the two of them love so much, out of tune and without a care in the world.
Eren breaks free and takes the cup from Mikasa to refill it. She falls against Armin's shoulder when he's gone, her mouth next to his ear, and whispers something about how funny they all look.
"Look at Jean," Armin snickers. "He's showing off to the kids."
"Wait until Levi sees him like this."
Mikasa wonders what she must look like, half-drunk and rosy-cheeked. She turns to Armin, whose face is red, and allows herself a chuckle. "You need to take a break, Armin."
He laughs with her and Mikasa takes his cup away, thinking the alcohol is at fault for his behaviour. However, with that bright grin of his which he always wore to speak about the sea, he says "I remember the last time you guys were that happy. I've missed it."
Mikasa looks at Eren. The ghost of a smile still tugs at his lips. Right now, there is no war, no suffering, just the Scouts in the tent, protected by their discordant songs against the evil of the world. He's happy and for once not focused on the future. She could look at him forever.
Sasha disrupts her reverie by pulling her to dance. They both spin until they're dizzy. Sasha mutters next to Mikasa's ear --or she thinks she's muttering when in reality she's shouting something which makes Mikasa both laugh and blush. "Now's your chance" is a phrase repeated more times than Mikasa would like if her friend is determined to keep her volume up. "Attagirl!" Sasha shouts in the end and lets her go. She grabs Armin to be her next victim, and so Mikasa stumbles out of her hold and reaches for Eren's cup. She collides with his chest and tangles her fingers with his in an attempt to snatch it.
A frustrated grunt comes from the back of Eren's throat. Mikasa looks up to see his expression of pure concentration as he tries to free their hands. She laughs and braces the back of his neck to retain her balance. Eren meets her eyes and cracks a smile which turns into a toothy grin, and then his head dips forward. Their hot foreheads press.
When was the last time they were carefree and happy like this? Maybe there never was one. Eren always ran and thought ahead, to places she could never follow.
Their laughter comes violent and lung-crushing. They hold on tighter from one another as if the other is what keeps them upright instead of gravity. The cup has fallen from Eren's hand, so he laces their fingers together. All Mikasa looks at is Eren's grin until it fades away and he turns serious. She realises why, a blush spreads across her cheeks, her heart skips a beat. She raises her eyes to his; the spark has returned, and it burns brighter than before. The drunken singing and laughing around them fades to a hum in the background as she gazes at him mesmerised.
"Mikasa."
His way of saying her name is breathtaking. It brings a sense of comfort pooling into her stomach. He's staring at her lips and this time she can't ignore or dismiss it. Some force akin to a magnet's pull draws her closer, and Mikasa doesn't plan to resist. She finds herself wondering how she ever did manage to hold back.
"You aren't family. I lied," she whispers, just a breath away. Her heart races so hard that she's convinced he can hear it. "Sorry I lied."
Then she kisses him. After a moment of hesitation, his arm wraps around her waist and his fingers tangle in her hair, drawing her closer. Mikasa holds onto him and reciprocates as if he's her only source of oxygen, as if he will disappear if she lets go. Something which she's been wishing for years has finally taken form, he holds her like she's always dreamt, firmly like he can't bear to lose her.
The intensity of the kiss fades to a soft touch, so that they can catch their breaths. "Sorry," Eren whispers with every kiss pressing on her mouth, along her jawline, down her neck. "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay," Mikasa manages breathlessly. She doesn't want this to end, she'd be perfectly happy trapped in a loop of haziness and safety and drunken kisses forever.
"It's not."
"Why?" Mikasa pulls away and stares into his eyes, but she can't read them. They've darkened so much throughout the last four years that she feels like they'll never lighten again. What used to be twin blazing beacons of pure raw joy, sorrow, despair or anger are now blurry and bleak like the river water. A cipher, like Eren always was.
"It's unfair," he mutters. It occurs to her that he isn't talking about the kiss rather than something else. Maybe the cause of the shadow shrouding his eyes. That's enough to sober her up, even by a little. She needs to know what burdens him, he has to tell her.
"What's unfair?" Mikasa insists.
Eren hesitates, tries to dig into his mind for the answer, but the alcohol or maybe another part of him doesn't allow him to indulge. The interlude is harrowing, the silence grows hungry and gnaws at the veil of safety they've weaved around them. Soon, they will remember how much they've hurt and how much more they're bound to suffer.
Mikasa's nails dig into his back. The moment is slipping away but she doesn't care, she has to know. "Eren? What's unfair?" she repeats.
"I don't remember."
He leans in and Mikasa closes her eyes, but the touch never comes. Instead, there's a grunt and Eren rubs his head, struck by an airborne shoe.
"Get a room you two!" Connie proclaims from the other side of the tent, one shoe short.
Mikasa thinks that Eren will detach from her and start wrestling with Connie, but the alcohol has definitely made him bolder. With a sly smile, he whisks her off her feet and spins her around again and again. Mikasa gasps surprised, and then the warmth in her chest turns into bubbling laughter. Armin cheers from the side, and when her feet touch the ground, Mikasa smiles playfully. He winks. "Let's show them how it's done." And then he clutches her into a back-bending kiss so that everyone can see them.
Her head throbs the next morning, and her lips burn. Mikasa runs her fingers through her hair to comb them as the memories come flooding back, intangible like a half-remembered dream.
Eren's arms are still around her. His black coat is tossed to the other side of the tent and the first few buttons of his shirt are undone. Armin sleeps next to him and Jean's neck is trapped under his knee.
Mikasa reaches out to grab her own coat, however Eren's hold tightens around her middle; she loses her balance and falls back to his embrace.
"Stay," he whispers, his eyes shut. His voice is a little hoarse yet steady, his grip firm and certain. Mikasa can tell he's sobered up completely by now, the healing factor of the titan shifter taking effect.
She may not remember what they said, but the memories of his touch, his warm presence, are vivid. Mikasa runs her fingers through his dishevelled hair and presses a kiss on his forehead. "All right." She snuggles closer to him and closes her eyes, lulled to sleep by the heavy alcohol's effect. Her head nests into the crook of his neck and everything is okay.
She doesn't remember that she hummed "I like your smile, Eren," as they lay in each other's arms, just before sleep whisked them both away. The rest were already passed out, sprawled on the tattered rugs. "It's beautiful. It makes me feel warm. You should smile more often."
He held her close, but didn't reply.
"Promise that you'll smile for me every day." If she were sober, she'd never dare say such a thing. She'd never share the dream she'd buried deep in her heart, of a house in the forest and with Eren's arms as her shelter; because every time she envisioned it, the threat of war stained the peaceful image and spread fast and uncontrollably to soak and ruin it. But now it was crystal clear in her head. Because by the end of the night Mikasa didn't know which had made her more drunk, the alcohol or the taste of home which clung to Eren's lips.
He looked so solemn in the dark. "Mikasa..."
She shut him up with a kiss. "Promise me," she insisted. She wouldn't take any answer other than yes.
Eren studied her with his indecipherable look, which softened into unlimited adoration. "I prom..." She kissed him again. "Okay, I..." And again. Her hand cupped his cheek.
"Promise me," she mumbled sleepily.
Eren traced her features with his lips, her forehead, her half-shut eyelids, her mouth, merely the ghost of a kiss. "I will smile at you forever. I promise."
As Mikasa drifted off, she felt his cheek damp under her fingers with tears she wouldn't remember when she woke up. But she would remember his last smile just before she fell asleep, the brightest of all, now etched in her mind with every detail. A final gift only for her.