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An aggravating gruff voice calling her name and a finger flicking at her forehead woke her up from her delightful after-school slumber. She brushed her hair and clothes from any impurity before standing up and waiting to be called again.
Forty-six days and forty-five nights had passed since Historia Reiss had made a habit out of spending most of her evenings, even the nights at the host’s request, at her uncle's place—with all the reluctance the routine implied. It was a tight and neat little thing with two bathrooms, one bedroom and a couch she had come to appreciate in spite of the crumbs, as anything was preferable over the ambience that awaited her at home, without a doubt. The only thing, or rather, one, she felt profoundly irritated by was who she could—at least—infer with guarantee was Uri's roommate. Bedmate, if she made an effort to draw her own conclusions based on the singular bed inside the singular bedroom. The preciseness of what the man was to her uncle she had no clue about, nor much interest, for that matter. What she knew for a fact was that Kenny Ackerman was an unbearable jackass to her, and, to be fair, anyone that wasn't Uri Reiss—academic prodigy, anemic boy-wonder, high-school philosophy teacher and head of studies, the Reiss family's second-biggest embarrassment, and the one individual Kenny appeared to be partial to so much so that his attitude bordered on a crude stab at housewifery. He had the perpetual face of a constipated alligator and the temper of a snarky fourteen-year-old girl whilst treating Historia like she wasn't a day over five.
Week days were a particular inconvenience. Historia left school much earlier than Uri, which gave for up to three hours of solitary confinement with the lesser man of the house, whose attempts at conversation fluctuated between dull and outright deranged with no apparent middle ground. Four days ago Kenny had been babbling about some nonsense from the 80s or 90s—Maggie, Nancy, Ronald, venereal diseases and whatnot— and when she answered with no more than a bemused frown to a question she didn't care to register, he threw a carabiner in her direction with nothing more to say for the rest of the day.
“Your mot's at the door again.” Kenny announced between mouthfuls of a granola bar Historia had hidden in the back of the fridge for her later, now forever unrealizable, fulfillment.
She stood holding the door handle while glaring at him from across the hall before leaving with a loud bang the second he decided to notice.
In any other situation she would have taken the elevator, however, due to the dreaded circumstances she found herself in, she was beckoned to prolong the journey down the stairs in hopes the wait would wear her visitor out enough to leave and let her win, which was ultimately futile because Uri lived on a second floor.
Ymir was enough of a creep to make this senseless vow to no one but herself of checking upon Historia twice a week, thrice if she felt needy, ever since she found out where she had been staying for the past month and a half, as if she was some sort of wounded animal in recovery.
“Historia.” Ymir almost sighed her entire soul out as her small piercing eyes brightened the moment she gazed upon the aforementioned standing before her. She took a step forward, raising her arms in a motion that indicated she was going in for one of those suffocating hugs of hers. However, If that was the intention, she decided against it at last, letting her arms fall limp to her sides.
“Everything alright?” asked Ymir, fidgeting with the inside of her pocket pulling on a loose string.
“Is that all you came here for?”
“You looked more somber than usual at school, I seldom manage—”
“That's a big word, congratulations.”
“—To catch a glimpse of you these days and when I do you look like you’re going through coke withdrawal.”
“Because you would know what that looks like.”
“Historia, everyone’s worried about you, even Reiner, who has the cognitive ability of a newborn calf, can tell something’s off,” She sighed, leaning to brush a hair strand from the face of the girl in front of her, “You are not well, I know you aren't; your hair’s all over the place, your eye bags have eye bags—”
“It's fine. I'll be fine.” Historia slipped from her grasp as soon as she came in contact, making the strand go back to its original place.
“But you're not ‘fine’, I’m sure there's a way I can—”
“I am aware. All that you should be concerned about is perfect and well off as it is,” For reasons beyond her comprehension, her tone came out with less amount of sternness than intended. So, she reiterated, “If you are quite done with your coddling, I suggest you leave.”
“What?” Ymir huffed and deflated in the most pathetic and docile of ways. Historia used to plead and beg on her knees for her parents to buy her a dog from ages six to twelve, her preference for not so easy on the eyes breeds did not help her case. Gazehounds were dear to her heart before all else, for they were brisk but otherwise timid and lazy creatures. In a sense, she wanted to run and run by someone’s side into the wild blue yonder never to be seen again.
“Okay. Okay. Got it.” Ymir admitted defeat and leaned in to kiss her cheek, she allowed it, making a deliberate effort to show as much apathy as possible once those chapped lips brushed her skin. “See you around, Historia.”
She anticipated Ymir would stand still there like a moron unless she went through that door, but before proceeding she looked up to confirm her suspicions. And as predicted, there he was, not even having the decency to peep, staring at her from the apartment's window without a trace of discretion or shame. Kenny's waving received no answer.
Kenny greeted, “Your surliness's gonna scare all your lady friends away.”
Historia closed the door behind her not wasting a second to stare daggers at the wretched man from across the hallway. She wasn’t surly, there was not a trace of impoliteness in her speech. Not only did being cruel not require rudeness, but her brand of cruelness was necessary to the world just like hair straighteners or air fryers.
“You, of all people, are telling me, of all people, to play nicer?”
Against her better judgment, Historia sat down beside Kenny, who, against his better judgment, closed his legs to make space for her.
“The fact that is me telling you to stop being a wagon should concern you even further.”
“All you sad unemployed old queens are as nosy as the next one, no wonder, really. Is there a better option for you to entertain yourself with other than prying?”
“Ye were in the middle of the street practically shouting, there is no way that counts as a violation of yer privacy, not that you value it for anything other than to expose it anyway. It’s another thing to be ashamed of the specifics.”
“My life is filled to the brim with shame, not that you would know the first thing about it.”
“Are the upper crust's lives so lacking in action ye feel compelled to make up problems for yer own morbid entertainment? Historia, the one complication you had to face in your life so far has been your parents getting a divorce.”
“Because of me!”
“Because of you and plenty of other factors!” Kenny leaned his head back against the couch's back and blew a raspberry like the man-child he was. “You're giving yourself too much credit here. Your home situation wouldn't improve or worsen depending on your presence or lack thereof. You're no cataclysm of change, you're just yet another addition to a shitload of symptoms.”
“I am an intruder in my own home. I don’t resemble a single one of my half-siblings. Everything points to me and I can't make myself any smaller. This urges me towards nonelective violence,” Historia pulled on one of her hair strands, curling it on her pointer.
“Abel looks like you,” He scratched his beard, "Sorta."
“No, she doesn’t.”
“No, she doesn’t,” He agreed, for once, “And I am to assume that gives you the right to treat your girlfriend like horseshit?”
“Ymir thrives on attention. She fancies herself indispensable. I am merely making the continuous effort to inform her of the unattainability of her goal.”
It took Kenny a while to take that in, he scrunched up his eyes to the point his left one began twitching in an exasperated attempt to either make her explode with his mind or begin to figure out what exact cluster she belonged to.
“You're one Machiavellian little shit, you know that?” He rubbed his temple in hopes of avoiding an imminent internal hemorrhage, “Jesus Christ… Jesus Christ! If this was some kind of fetish it could be somehow understandable, but you're just punishing this poor lass for, God forbid, giving two shits about you. I don’t get it, kid, honest to God, I don’t.”
“Well, you should, Kenny, you, more than anyone should be more than knowledgeable on the point I am trying to get across.”
“There’s no point being made. You’re just dragging thirds into your own path of misery and repression like any other filthy rich deviant out there.”
“You call me a deviant yet expect me not to be the slightest bit constrained. Wow.”
“Do you plan on keeping yourself in the dark and settling for the first fella who looks faggy enough for the marriage to be bearable?” Kenny turned to her, hunching over in a way that made it look like he was talking to an infant, “Let me tell you, it won't be bearable, it won’t be bearable in the slightest. You will have a more than stable income, with two or three little blessings running like critters around your fancy yard, where you’ll keep an immaculate flowery garden neighbors and passersby alike will stare at in wonderment, which will be your sole comfort from having to force yourself to lay in bed every single night chained to a man that is virtually a stranger to you, bearing and caring for children that are everything but yours. You will be playing the executioner of your own demise by filling your head with regrets and what ifs. If only you hadn't been such a coward back then, and if only you weren't a coward now. Is that the sought-after life you're pursuing? Is that what you want, Historia?”
She glared through her eyebrows and turned her head in the opposite direction to the berating bum sitting next to her in the most cautious manner achievable as soon as the heat of her frustration started boiling her sight.
“Sounds better than your situation, that's for sure.” To avoid the wobbling of her voice, she uttered the words through gritted teeth.
In advance of Kenny recovering from his dumbfoundedness and demand her to elaborate, like a guardian angel, her uncle busted inside the apartment—inhaler in mouth like a hamster chugging on a water dispenser, overgrown bangs sticking to his forehead—holding what could’ve been either three or six bags of groceries. Uri, with that obstinate self-reliance exclusive to himself, asked for a little hand to which Kenny—everything but—swayed to aid him as he berated him for no more than five seconds before he pressed his nose to the shorter man’s scalp for a few moments too long and demanded he take a direly needed shower with a slap-turned-caress on the nape of his neck.
Historia watched the entire scene with a tinge of eeriness, not at the act itself, but at the certain reminiscence that stirred something almost mushy in her gut.
To clean her head, she decided to contribute to their little ecosystem by unpacking one of the grocery bags and shoving every item in the fridge, with the exception of a container of strawberry yogurt she propped open and snuck her tongue in like an anteater.
Uri and Kenny were not having, nor ever had at any point in time, intercourse with one another; that revoltingly sexless display was the final nail in the coffin for her conviction that their relationship was much more epicene and blood-curling than any other moronic faggotry—an interdependent oath to celibacy.
Uri walked in the kitchen with rosy cheeks, the result of water heated beyond precision (it was no wonder his skin was so dry, not a trace of self-preservation on this man).
“Will the day ever come when you decide to kick him out once and for all?” He laughed at the reprimand shaking his head, an inappropriate response to Historia’s beyond serious demand.
They had this back-and-forth every two weeks. In which Historia called a freeloader a freeloader and her uncle answered by saying it would be unfair and against the law to evict a man out of an apartment that was his by right; when he was reminded it was him who handled most of the rent, Uri resorted to claim with covetous fondness in his voice that Kenny did his fair share of contribution (laundry and maybe, just maybe, the dishes), as well and swearing his company was “a delight to have around”.
For Historia to conceive any of her father’s assessments as veracious the stars had to align, and maybe they did today as Uri might be in fact, sick in the head, and had gotten by without notice of a mental health professional this far in life due to his specific brand of lunacy containing extreme affability as one of its main symptoms.
“You look so pale, dear, You really ought to get some air,” Historia opened her mouth but found her upcoming interruption interrupted, “And don't tell me you get enough air at school, a little birdie, that being your chemistry teacher, bless their heart and patience, told me they've had to kick you out of the laboratory more than once because you hide in there during recess instead of going outside.”
“I am begging you, go for a walk, let the sun hit your skin, and please don't make my co-workers' lives any harder, they get paid so little already,” Uri said as he handed her his keys and a bit of money for moral compensation which she took not without grumbling in unwillingness.
She had been walking without aim for twenty, thirty, seventy or ten minutes when it hit her—she hadn’t yet finished her yogurt when she left. She contemplated all the potential methods to kill herself she could recall from the top of her head, the metaphorical ones, that is. The idea to trace it all back to the very beginning and terminate the source brewing in the cauldron of her mind until she laid eyes upon an uphill road she couldn’t see the end of. Historia felt an endless amount of infantile urges surge through every inch of her which were but another piece of the on and off jigsaw that was her never-ending longing for something to do.
With very little self-awareness or social self-preservation in mind, she sprinted against the wind, her vision becoming blurry and her stomach turning. With her eyes squinted she could picture and frame almost anything.
A flock of sheep.
A warm meal.
A cottage in the countryside.
A dog.
A kiss.
A girl.
The last thought begged her to run faster.
Her lungs felt heavy whilst she laid eyes upon the more brown than green valley ahead and so close, Historia’s knees did not give up at any point, the transition from concrete to mildewed stone did however perturb her feet enough to make her roll and collapse face-first into the ground. Due to the impact, the bruises, or most likely whatever laid weight on her heart at the moment, her eyes began to water with progressive intensity. Her sobs must have alerted the few people that still lived there, because not long after a prince unlike any other came to her rescue. Historia decided to open her eyes at long last, she examined the specimen before her pair by pair. A pair of toned legs, a pair of short pigtails and that pair of phlegmatic eyes worn as a thin veil for already poorly concealed contempt.
“Mikasa.”
“Am I to be flattered her majesty the Queen acknowledges the existence of someone as lowly and macabre as myself?”
“Don't fucking call me that,” Historia winced as she felt a sharp pain stab her back once she exerted herself to sit up,“ I barely qualify as a duchess.”
“My most solemn apologies, your grace.” She was lifted to her feet by inhuman strength and a tad bit of aggression.
Against all odds, Mikasa invited her in. She claimed her ‘progenitors’, as she named them, weren't in the ominous, quiet and dim shack they called home. She could very well murder her and use her as a virgin sacrifice for a pagan ritual if she wished to, or perhaps drain her blood from her neck by sinking her teeth in, dragging her tongue to the wound, it wouldn't be the most unplesant way for things to end. The possibilities were endless.
They sat across from each other in the dining room. Mikasa had slid a first-aid kit across the table and watched with a keen eye as Historia cleaned her own bruises while gobbling a chicken sandwich in an uncharacteristic, mellow way. The similarities were unsettling.
“What if she jumped from across the table out of the blue and chopped my limbs off in the most brutal way while I was still conscious? Hilarious, and deserved to an extent,” she thought as she applied a bandage to her knee, then she deduced it would be wise to stop mulling over the thought since her familiarity with the occult could grant the Ackerman girl with mind-reading abilities, and she was doing nothing but give her more ideas.
“Does the name Kenny Ackerman ring a bell?”
“While I am often questioned about my fellowship with the aforementioned just as I am with the school's custodian as our shared surname is uncustomary at large, I am afraid that aside from our plausible kinship, I do not happen to be particularly well-acquainted with either man.” She made a pause to finish her treat, “What motivates your inquiry?”
“The matching last name piqued my curiosity,” For a second she wondered if it would be wise to disclose anything personal to this girl in particular, but given the circumstances blackmailing would be the least of her woes, “He and my uncle have this sort of, how do I put it? Bert and Ernie situation?”
“Are you referring to the silver-haired man of short stature who roams the school’s corridors like a rodent suffering from neurosis, and most would presume to be that way inclined at first glance?”
Historia managed a weak, “That one,” Because what else was one to answer to by far the most posh and oddly lyrical manner someone had insulted a family member.
“How legitimate is the rumor that the man is prone to the recreational use of cannabis?”
“He has asthma.”
“That does not quite answer my query.”
Mikasa insisted on at the very least dropping her near her destination with her bicycle— an old little thing she must have had since middle school judging by the outgrown size and the juxtaposed stickers of varying interest plastered all over its metal frame. As soon as Historia sat down on the carrier, Mikasa started pedaling like a maniac.
The road downhill made her fear for her life for once and hold the other girl's waist in a death grip. Her abdomen was incredibly firm in spite of the air of aloofness her face wore that indicated no muscle was being flexed, perhaps she wore a corset, perhaps she was rather wiry and fit under all those rags, perhaps Historia ought to cease her thoughts regarding the nude form of someone who could potentially see right through her rotten brains.
“I often wonder,” Mikasa's oily hair hit Historia's face and for the first time in a while she couldn’t be bothered just for the way it floated like minuscule strands of licorice with the twilight’s breeze. As pleasant as the sight could be, nothing would ever compensate for a soliloquy, “Why is it that humans latch on to one another in the way they do? Camaraderie, of course, but why value a specific company? Is it similitude? Is it cathartic to keep close to heart something one substantially lacks?”
“It could always be conformism.”
“Why is it that you referred to your uncle and his companion as those puppets, what prompts the comparison?” When Historia said that she had been under the assumption that Mikasa, in her archaic speech, was also oblivious to any and all pop culture references altogether, which made way for the most awkward answer in her department.
“Erm…you know how in Sesame Street you can like, see Ernie without Bert at times but can hardly catch Bert without Ernie?”
“A similar situation to that of you and your freckled gamine friend then?”
“Hah.” Her line of perception was as distasteful as her attire, it seemed. What would she know about stolen glances treasured on one's sweaty palm with a grip with enough force to vertically shatter an egg? What did she know of revolt? Of pudency? Of abomination? Of repugnance? Of shame?
“Forsooth, I ought to loathe you and all your ilk for having the mere gall to make the life of my beloved and therefore mine a living hell for weeks. Yet not only am I grateful for your assistance during Eren's abduction, which, in retrospect, should have made me green with envy. But I so happen to find you utterly perplexing, my liege. I should be writhing in jealousy, yet, for some reason, I find myself wholly calm at the prospect.”
Once Historia got down from the bike, Mikasa’s lips graced each side of her face, her inaccuracy staining the other girl's left cheek with jet black. Perhaps being aware of the chaste nature of the custom made her less bashful than in other, more freckled cases.
They waved each other off as an unspoken truce for their encounter to remain a tiny gold-filled crack alone in their otherwise speckless egos.
The sole source of light in the apartment came from the TV screen in front of her couch. Uri and Kenny were sleeping with tangled limbs in a position that looked, in all honesty, agonizing.
Inconceivable as it sounded, Kenny did not snore, quite the contrary, he slept so quiet and unmoving one may start to wonder if he finally decided to do everyone a favor and move onto the next life, to combat this, he was simultaneously a very light sleeper.
Historia slapped Kenny’s forehead with just enough force for it to hurt yet make as little a fuss as possible.
She pestered, “Gimme a ride.”
“Oh, fuck off, let me rest! Aren’t ya grown enough to take yourself out?” He groaned, using his right arm to cover his face and avoid a second strike.
“I am cursed with the worst genetics known to man that make it so my feet are unable to reach the pedals,” Historia shook him sideways until he gave in, she had a hunch it was due to his own embarrassment rather than her assertiveness. Kenny had a mildly difficult time wriggling himself out of his roommate deceiving feeble-looking arms, whose grip on the larger man was but made stronger by his struggle, the way he kept burying his head into his chest did not provide much help either. Uri, half-woken up by the jerky movements under him, crawled to be at Kenny’s ear level and murmured something that earned him a whiny groan from the latter. At last Kenny slipped out his grasp by sliding himself off the couch and onto the floor slow, steady and upside down. He stayed in that position, glaring at the one to blame.
“Well, don’t just stand there, gal. Go grab me keys.”
The one thing more suicide-inducing than having to hear Kenny speak were the small noises he made exclusively to prevent peace from occurring in her life.
“The beach is just ten minutes away from here,” She mentioned, setting up the car’s GPS. Her uncle had mentioned to her more than once, in a way that made it seem more like an endearing quirk than a fatal flaw, that Kenny was terrible with directions, especially while driving.
“Y’know you aren't a deviant, right?” He said after at least three minutes, leaning his head towards the passenger seat when he could look at the rearview mirror like a normal human being.
“Mm-hm.” Historia mumbled with a tone as idle as her mind. She pressed her forehead to the window to feel the bumps of the road against her skull. Maybe the noises weren’t the worst of it.
“The sole reason I am saying this is because your brain is so full of shite the gears are capable of turning anything I say in favor of whatever poxy agenda you got going.”
Historia hummed in the same manner as before, praying for any savior revered by a cult to send a bolt of lighting and strike her this instant.
After a beat, Kenny demanded, “Say it.”
“What?”
“With your full chest say, verbatim et literatim, that you aren’t perverted or deranged or depraved, and that being a dyke is just deadly,” He stopped the car on the side of the road with an abrupt glide and halt that made Historia clutch the belt like it was the rope at a tug and war game.
“I am not going to say that.”
“You got two options, young lady. You either get on with it or I’m dropping you in the middle of the highway.” He proceeded to open the door and grab Historia’s shoulder, which made her stomach drop even if the grip wasn’t as severe as it could be.
“You’re so full of shit… You are so full of shit!” She kicked his shin, knee, and thigh with no reaction granted, as she should have expected.
“No, no, no, no, I agree! Living under that very moldy bridge looks so much prettier than showing just a bit of filthiness for once in your life!” He sneered with one foot already outside, yanking Historia by the forearm in his direction, squeezing out every curse in her repertoire.
“Fuck! Alright! Alright! Alright! Alright! I’ll say it, just let go!” She wailed, her voice faltered and spit spilled out her mouth. He sat back down and closed the door, his hand remained where it was.
“Well?” Kenny pressed after a few seconds of silent trembling and frowning from her part.
“I am not perverted, depraved or deranged.”
He stared at her in a way that could make any toddler piss its pants, still expecting her to continue without releasing her shoulder.
“… And being a dyke is terrific.” She mustered yielding with her head down.
Her surrender turned his attitude on its head, he patted her on the back before starting the car again, baring his gums and laughing, “Fair play! See? ‘S Not the end of the world, is it?” Oh, but it certainly felt like it.
“Ye made me drive forty kilometers so you could pick up rocks.”
“What a keen observation, Kenny. Keep it up and one of these days you might just find out I’m blonde, puny and a bastard.” Historia conducted a scrutiny on each stone, inspecting with care in order to only select the most excelling—roundest and most polished—of them and shoved them in her handbag.
At one point during her recollection, Kenny pointed at a particularly small pebble saying, “You,” or rather, “Ya,” To which Historia replied by emulating his words, picking up an ugly-looking fat rock she chose to point to and throwing it into the shore. They continued with the same game of pointing and picking until Historia underestimated her own drive and hit Kenny's receding hairline with a sharp pointy rock, leading to him throwing the girl over his shoulder and tossing her to the waters, silenced by a splash before she could vocalize a full yelp.
Historia coughing and pitiful attempts at standing caused Kenny to erupt into hyenoid crackles that, to her dismay, made her giggle too. In her frustration, she began fisting handfuls of wet sand and throwing them in directions that just barely hit her target, who in response did the same—with a higher advantage and therefore better aim, of course. His dry projectile of choice turned wet little time after it came in contact with her. By the time she managed to crawl her way out of the water she considered for only a millisecond tackling him but was instantly crushed with the reminder she didn't even reach the meter and a half and despite what his complexion might indicate, Kenny was a fat fuck. So she opted for the logical alternative—sprinting towards the nearest indicator of civilization screaming at the top of her lungs. Blessed be cheer practice for that.
By the end of their wrangling, Historia extorted him into entering the nearest gas station and bought each of them a nasty, flavorly enhanced with the vilest chemicals known to man ice-cream with the money she was granted earlier in the day. A lemon popsicle for Historia and a frozen yogurt sandwich for Kenny. Neither bothered to clean off the sand when they got inside the car.
Even as she licked the sugary ice that numbed her teeth and skull, the salt in her tongue and viscera remained, just as persistent as the prickly dampness of her clothing, which prompted her to ask the trillion-dollar question that had been scorching the back of her head for the eternity that was forty-six days and forty-six nights now.
“What’s with you and my uncle?”
“Plenty and not much.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant,” Her driver did not frown but rather grimaced, which to the unfamiliar eye might lead one to think he was more amused than apprehensive
“So?” Historia—knowing better and refusing to utilize said knowledge— importuned.
Kenny muttered something unintelligible under his breath wearing an expression that should under no circumstances be allowed on his face.
“What was that?”
“I’ve got. No. Bleedin’. Clue,” He said, clutching his jaw. To Historia’s surprise this did accomplish to tug at her heartstrings enough to continue to sever the can of worms.
“Isn’t it, at this point, as simple as straight up asking him?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you, Historia? Everything always comes on a silver platter for you, all you ever have to do is accept or decline, while I have to ask. Ya think I can just go up to him after knowing each other for over twenty years and almost a decade of the most smooth, sexless, Ken doll of a home environment and ask ? What would I even ask, for fuck’s sake? Howya, Uri! Remember when we were both twenty-something and absolutely hammered, and I gave you that godawful, God, awful blowjob? Would you like me to do it again, pal? Because I’d really, truly love to!”
Hearing Kenny Ackerman piss and moan about his sex-life in her ear was somehow even worse than his bone-chilling half-assed apologies, his pesky silent-filling noises or his potty humor.
“Maybe he would consider fucking, making love to you, dare I say, if you got a job.”
“Me arse.”
“You’re right. Sharing a life, a home, and a bed with you must be miserable enough on its own,” Her words came as slurred as bitter due to her incessant nibbling on the ice cream’s stick which continued even after the wood broke apart and became little more than mush, “I can’t even begin to imagine the state of desperation he must have to find himself in if he ever decides to sleep with your sorry ass, worse than that, I would be forced to refer to you as family, which is terrible enough without you, thank you very much. ”
“As if you were any better of an addition to any poor fucker's life, look at the cut of you.”
“You’re the closest thing to a nagging wife he’ll ever have, whereas I’m a parasite leeching to my poor inamorata’s heart. I am, in fact, so much—GAHH!” She squealed at the feeling of calloused fingers pulling her nose in all directions.
“It's a lot less fun to make jabs at someone when they just acquiesce!” He pinched, pulled and twisted her skin, at one point it felt like the tissue might be pulled from the rest of her body, “Is it really that hard not to talk like a snob, ya wee flat-nosed freak?”
“Kenny, if you don’t keep your eyes on the fucking road and end up hitting something I swear to God I am force-feeding its corpse to you!”
To her absolute contentment and relief he did let go of her, not without one last harsh tug of her nostrils and a huff.
She tried rubbing the soreness out of her nose, which wasn’t much since that feeling of ripping flesh might had been but a fragment of her own imaginative state of distress. A few moments after the initial shock, Kenny extended his arm to rummage through the glove compartment while doing what one could be so brave to call an effort to keep a safe hold the steering wheel and look ahead at the same time before finally pulling out a CD.
“Ever gave Pinkerton a listen?”
“Uh-huh, please get that wretched thing away from my sight.”
Historia cringed at the couple of putrid memories of Bertolt’s bedroom in the 9th grade with that godforsaken blue album poster being one of the only things plastered on that—as ubiquitously boring as it’s host— wall and Reiner’s pathetic pursuit at the flamenco guitar—which somehow remained on track to this day. The amount of times she was forced to listen to that fucking Pink Triangle acoustic shit-show should entitle her to financial compensation for the next forty years of her life.
“It is an atrocity against all of humankind. And lesbians, of course, ” He cracked up, putting the case back in its respective place and repeating the same motion as before to fish out another.
“How about this one, eh?” Kenny shook a CD case over her head like one would a dog with a treat, or in a more grim comparison like he would a sixteen-year-old closeted queer with a bag of weed.
Historia squinted, making a face, “Does that say “pussy whipped” in glitter?”
“You’re late.”
“Oh, pardon my tardiness, your royal highness, for when you texted me in the middle of the night to come to your house with no further explanation, I wasn't too sure where your current place of residence was as I have little to no grasp of a situation that does not concern me—”
Before Ymir could continue on her spite-filled scolding, Historia handed her a pretty, round and smooth rock from her handbag.
“Is this a test of faith?”
There was a constant dampness to Ymir’s eyes that would stir the most genuine of condolences were it not for her character.
“You would stop being tested if I were to tell you so it might as well be.”
Born from sin but free of it in the end due to lack of action, Historia threw the first stone which did little more damage than an unperceivable scratch on the surface of one of the window frames. If one looked for long enough at the Reiss' residence the amount of windows seemed to multiply to infinity.
She looked at the mansion, never hers to begin with, then at Ymir and back at the mansion again.
Ymir's inhibitions were no more than a faint sigh before taking a step backwards and launching the stone with a force that resulted in the shattering of her father’s bedroom window followed by an ear-piercing alarm sound, which, by every logic, resulted in each room in the house being lit up in an algorithmic sequence.
She managed to get a quick look at Rod Reiss’ appalled face emerging out the window frame before being yanked by a familiar hand into a sprint run.
“Why did you do that?!” Ymir yelled, twisting her wrist around.
“Why did you do that, eh?” Historia snickered.
“That's a no-brainer, shitbrains!”
She pulled her down grimy alley after grimy alley, made indecipherable due to both the speed and the dark that covered those parts of town not worth lighting, until there were no more corners or concrete and every step taken felt dragged with moisture, mud and the ticklish feeling of an overgrown carpet.
Historia let go of her hand, stopping in her tracks, Ymir came to a halt about ten steps away from her, looking up to the sky before bringing her hands to her knees breathing in howling pants.
“I don't think of your presence in my life as necessary.”
“Good to know?” She raised her arms in the air in a humongous effort, “What the hell do you want me to say to that?”
“You’re not letting me finish,” She implored.
Ymir turned to her, wiping sweat off her forehead in a glaringly lascivious manner (was it really?).
“I don't find it necessary, yet I still want it. Sometimes I can't stand it, but I want it,” Historia vomited the words out in bits like she was choking and trying to perform a Heimlich maneuver on herself, “It makes me nauseous, so sick to my stomach I've considered gutting myself on multiple instances only being stopped by the fear of everything spilling out for the world to perceive. And I still want it.”
Her chest ached like a million sewing needles piercing its most obscure part, she was taking the clump apart bit by bit by a process of ripping her throat and spitting up each individual ensanguined pin into the ground.
“Being born from dishonesty I am conditioned to repeat the errors of my conception.”
Despite her best attempts, the pesky metal rods cluttered in her trachea, depriving her of her previous eloquence, but that should be expected, as it often disappeared in moments of excessive company that required the expression of anything other than disdain.
“But, um, but, I think, I believe I've come to terms with…the things I want,” She bit her tongue, or was it the needles? “Desires and such are too much complicated stuffs.”
“Stuffs,” Ymir seemed unimpressed.
“You manage to appear so cool with so little effort. I've found myself leering at your legs often, you're like a galgo, you know, you should do track or replace me on the cheer team…”
“You're digressing.” She scolded, closing off part of the distance between them in a predatory, languid stroll.
“Ymir, I don't need you,” Historia restated herself, hunching forward and rubbing her hands together like a fly, scheeming, “I, Uh… I want you. Yeah. Yeah... that's it.”
“In your life, that is.” Ymir half-clarified, half-questioned, half-vacillated.
“Yeah.” She confirmed, refusing to do anything other than lower her head even lower.
“It's like your entire world falls before you the second you find yourself being anything other than a dismissive cunt towards me.”
“I am trying to pour out my heart here, you mocking me is the last thing I need.”
Historia looked up expecting Ymir hovering over her, she didn’t quite catch the exact moment she got that close, her breath was warm and smelled like onions. It tasted more like garlic bread, she noted. Their lips and teeth crashed and brushed in all sorts of uncomfortable ways, at one point Historia tried to sneak her tongue in but retreated at the feeling of it being bitten; she kept her nails sinked at the shoulders of Ymir at all times, who she had a hunch had no idea what on God’s green earth she was doing with her hands.
Their separation left a string of saliva that glistened an awful lot with the moonlight that framed them. Ymir ogled her like she was going to lay down on her back any moment now and beg her for belly rubs—she held Historia close instead, rubbing her face and left hand against her shoulder.
“I’m glad.”
Historia wondered about the name of the last song of the album from last night.