Work Text:
Knock-knock-knock!
The noise interrupts Mikasa’s handiwork. She looks up, from the blouse on her lap to the wooden door. It must be Jean. The thought instantly makes her lips curve into a small smile. She gets up from the chair, sets the blouse on the table, and heads to the door with a happy bounce in her steps.
Knock-knock-knock!
That is… a bit unlike Jean. He’d generally just wait for her to get the door. She quickens her pace regardless.
“Surprise!!!” It’s Connie who greets her from across the threshold, an ear-to-ear grin on his face.
Oh, so, not Jean. Her heart sinks a little. She quickly recovers herself though. Isn’t Connie also a dear friend of hers? Just like Jean?
Before she can ponder on it long enough to reach a conclusion, she spots Jean approaching from the other side – the direction opposite from his house. But the white paper bag in his hand answers her unasked question. It’s from that bakery near the train station. The one that sells the most delicious milk cakes she has ever tasted. He greets her with a soft smile and a little wave of his head. And just like that, her smile comes back on her lips.
“I must say, I’m not feeling very welcome,” Connie says, wiggling an eyebrow.
It makes her almost roll her eyes. “Come in,” she steps aside.
“Aah! It’s been a while since I’ve been here,” Connie says, taking his shoes off, his eyes roaming over her little living room.
“Here,” Jean hands her the paper bag, “We brought something to eat.”
“Wait! That table is new!” Connie says, pointing to the pinewood table in front of her kitchen. “When did you get this?”
“I didn’t get it, I made it,” she says in a flat voice, but finds it funny that he takes such a keen interest in her table. “Jean helped me.”
“Ou,” he says, “Let me see if you did a good job.” He pulls a chair and sits himself down, leaning against the back. “Hmm, not bad,” he nods, “Not bad, comfortable enough.”
This time, she chuckles. Unable to hold it in.
“You were sewing?” Jean asks, eyeing the blouse, the threaded needle pinned to it.
“Yes, a button came off my blouse. I’ll put it away.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he picks it up from the table and carefully places it on top of the small wooden cabinet. Exactly where she generally keeps her sewing materials.
“You didn’t tell me he was coming to Paradis,” she turns to Jean, her tone a bit accusatory.
“I didn’t know, he didn’t tell me either.”
“Oh.”
“You’re not going to ask what I’m doing here?” Connie asks.
“I suppose some of your ambassador work?”
“You’ve supposed right.”
“It doesn’t take too many guesses,” She says, opening the paper bag on her table. Inside, she finds two boxes. One containing a meat pie and the other one… four milk cakes. The sweet milky scent instantly makes her mouth water.
“What do you want to drink, Connie? Tea or coffee?”
“You have coffee?” Connie asks, his eyebrows travelling up into his forehead.
“Y-es?” She blinks.
“Since when do you drink coffee?”
“I…” That’s right. She doesn’t drink coffee. And yet, she has had a jar of coffee in her kitchen cabinet for a while now, right next to the jar of her tea. Just because… just because... her eyes scoot to Jean, washing his hands at her kitchen sink. “I don’t. It’s for guests. Do you want coffee then?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
She pours three cups of water into the pan before setting it on the stove. “You’ll have coffee, right?” She asks Jean, turning the fire up.
“Yes.”
“Hmh.”
Yes. How come she never even noticed?
After returning to Paradis, Jean began to call on her. With Armin and Connie settled in Marley, they were the only two of their group left here. And the letters exchanged between them in the years since his first visit to Paradis in 857 had already brought them much closer than their seven years of wartime camaraderie. Without the constant threat of the titans looming over them, and with his parents’ house merely two blocks away, it was much easier for them to just sit down and talk. About important political developments and trivial matters of their personal lives. Even she, who had never been much of a talker herself, found herself quite easy – and willing – to open up in his presence. So, quite unsurprisingly, the length of his visits became longer while the intervals between them grew shorter. Having him over at tea time became so common that it just felt very natural for her to get a jar of coffee to keep in her kitchen. For him.
“I’ll lend you a hand,” Jean speaks from beside her, interrupting her little reverie. Without wasting a moment, he gets busy getting the plates from the overhead cabinet, wiping them clean with the kitchen towel, and setting them on the table. And that too, feels so very natural. Even though technically, he too, is her guest.
Mikasa brings out the jar of shortbread cookies she baked a week ago. “Here,” he puts it on the table, right next to the plates where Jean is serving the pie and the cakes.
“Ah, you still had some left!” Jean’s face lights up, and he immediately reaches out to unfasten the jar.
“Do you take milk with your coffee?” She asks Connie as she adds milk to Jean’s cup.
“Yes.”
“Sugar?” She adds a spoonful of sugar to Jean’s coffee.
“Yes.”
The spoon tinkles against the cup as she stirs the sugar in. She has known both Jean and Connie for the same length of time, in the same capacity – first as comrades, later as friends. They should be equally as dear and as familiar to her, but in this moment she discovers herself to have an unfair bias towards Jean. Since when did she come to know exactly how Jean likes his coffee when she has not the slightest idea about Connie’s preferences?
“Oi, how long are you going to keep stirring? The coffee will get cold”
“Oh… yes.” She pushes the cup towards Connie. “Here.”
“Thanks.”
.
.
.
“Are you okay?”
“Huh?” She looks up, a little startled. Jean is observing her, the faint furrow between his brows betraying a hint of concern. And yet, as always, he maintains a respectable distance between them, careful not to get into her personal space.
“Yes I…” she struggles to find the exact words she is looking for, “I’m fine.” She collects the cups from the table.
“That’s good to know,” he nods, folding the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, getting ready to do the dishes.
Neither of them speaks a word, the only sound being that of the running water from the tap as he washes the dishes and she puts them in the rack after drying.
His presence in her kitchen, in her house, in her life, has become such a normal thing, but… since when?
“You’re spacing out a lot today.” He says, quite randomly his eyes on the plate he’s scrubbing with the sponge. The last plate.
“I…” she looks at him, then down at the plate as he hands it over to her. “Yes I was thinking.”
“About?” He washes his soapy hands under the tap.
She hesitates to tell him the truth.
“I see.” Done washing his hands, he turns the tap off, before looking up at her with a warm smile plastered on his face. “It’s not something you can tell me.”
She could easily mistake his words for a grievance if not for that smile. There's something so intimate about it. And something so understanding. She knows he won’t hold it against her that she refused to disclose her private thoughts to him. Everything about him is just so… easy. Yes, easy, that is the right word. She never has to exert herself, he just is there, right next to her. Ready to meet her where she is. “T-hanks,” she mutters.
“Just remember, if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m just round the corner.”
“I know.”
“Good,” he nods, drying his hands with the towel.
.
.
.
“Goodnight,” she bids him goodbye, standing at her door.
“Night.”
She stays there, as long as she can see him walk down the road, his back retreating further and further away. He walks a while before stopping, and he turns back, to wave his hand at her. She waves back in return, a smile on her lips. Then he rounds the corner, disappearing out of sight. But she remains standing there for a while, looking at the empty spot where he was a moment ago.
The moment she shuts the door, a wave of emptiness comes to drown her from every corner of her empty living room. How strange. She has lived alone in this house for years, back when Jean was in Marley. And… it’s not that she was a stranger to loneliness back then, rather it was her only companion every waking moment of every day. But this, this is a different kind of loneliness. Not as soul-crushing and more importantly, marked specifically by Jean’s absence.
Her eyes wander to the pinewood table and the two chairs, now sitting empty facing each other across the table. Why did she decide to make two chairs? She lives alone. Why did she even want a new table in the first place? Her old table was small, but wasn’t it large enough for one person? Why did she anticipate him hearing the knock on her door? And why, even for a moment, was she somewhat dejected to find Connie there?
What is Jean becoming to her?
She lies awake in bed till a faint red glow starts to lighten up the eastern horizon.
.
.
.
Her head a little heavy from lack of sleep, she washes the freshly picked tomatoes, turnips, and zucchinis. Before putting them away, she does not forget to set aside a portion in a smaller basket – the reddest tomatoes, the shiniest zucchinis, and the biggest turnips. Then, she pours a cup of water into the pan and is just about to turn the stove on when there's a knock at the front door. Pausing the task at hand she wipes her hands on her apron and heads to the door.
“Hey! Good morning!” Jean greets her with a big, hearty smile.
“Good morning,” she smiles back, the morning suddenly feeling a lot brighter and warmer, despite the heaviness in her head. “Come in.”
“I’ve to get mom’s medicines from the clinic, can’t say,” he says, coming in anyway. “Mom asked me to invite you for lunch. Connie will be coming too.”
“Lunch?”
“Yes. She’s making braised rib stew.” Her mouth waters as she recalls the delicious taste of Mrs. Kirschtein’s braised rib stew. “With your carrots and potatoes by the way.”
“Oh.”
Yes, it’s not just Jean. The whole Kirschtein family has woven itself into her life so effortlessly, she never stopped to notice.
“Do you want coffee?”
“Co- sure I can stay for coffee.” He walks confidently into her kitchen. “I’ll make it. And tea for you?”
“Yeah. I was just getting the water ready.”
Jean promptly adds another cup of water to the pan before turning the stove on.
“Is that today’s harvest?”
“Yes.”
It feels so natural. To just sit at her pinewood table, across from each other, sipping on their cups of tea and coffee, just the two of them, talking about small, unimportant things as the morning grows brighter and the chatter of people on the street louder outside her windows. Yes, this shift did happen, over a long time, a little at a time. She just took too long to notice.
“Take this with you,” she hands him the small basket with the vegetables.
“I was hoping it was for me,” he laughs. A hearty laugh.
He didn’t laugh like that before. At least not in front of her. This kind of unrestrained laugh.
“Don’t be late,” he says as she bids goodbye to him at her threshold.
“I won’t,” she replies, closely watching how the morning light reflects in his amber coloured eyes.
Yes, it’s strange that it has taken her this long to notice. Or maybe deep down, she had noticed, she just wasn’t ready to acknowledge it. But the truth remains that Jean has surely managed to become the most… ‘prominent’ person at this point in her life. And for whatever reason, this morning it no longer unsettles her. No. Instead it feels… somewhat reassuring. Yes. Just to have someone like that in her life once again. It’s strange indeed. It is strange that battered and bruised, her heart still dares. After all that pain, after shutting itself away for what she thought was forever, it still opens up like the first petals of a flower slowly blooming at the touch of warm sunlight. But that is just the type of person Jean is. His warm, constant, unobtrusive presence coaxed her heart out of its self-imposed confinement before she was aware of it. It has been a while since she stopped considering every new morning something to endure, but something to await and even anticipate.
She shuts the door behind her, at peace with her heart, thankful for its frailty.