Chapter Text
The show had been running for six years by the time Mikasa finally said yes.
Sasha had asked before. She had asked in the early days when Bites & Banter was still finding its legs, still figuring out that its greatest asset was Sasha's complete inability to be anyone other than herself, which turned out to be exactly what people wanted. She had asked again when the show hit its stride and the guest list started including people who came not because they needed the platform but because sitting on Sasha's couch felt, inexplicably, like being in someone's kitchen. She had asked a third time after the Connie episode and Mikasa had said maybe, which in her vocabulary meant not yet and everyone in Sasha's orbit had understood that.
The yes came on a Thursday morning in March 2026, a text at seven forty-two. Sasha had screenshot it and sent it to her producer Petra with three exclamation points and no other context. Petra, who had been with the show since the beginning and was fluent in Sasha's communication style, had texted back is that a yes or are you having a stroke, and Sasha had called her immediately and talked for twenty minutes without fully stopping, and by the end of it they had a date.
***
The studio was smaller than people expected.
A converted room in a building in the west village that Sasha had refused to leave when the offers came to move somewhere more legitimate, because she felt that moving somewhere more would make the show worse, and she was right. Good microphones. Good lighting. A board that Petra ran from a glass booth at the back. A couch from Sasha's own apartment, brought in the second year because the production company's original couch had felt like a waiting room and she wanted guests to feel like they were in her living room, because they essentially were.
And food. Always food. Non-negotiable.
Mikasa arrived at ten to find a spread that suggested Sasha had been cooking since at least seven. Three kinds of something fried. A bowl of something warm and miso-adjacent. Fruit arranged with artful artlessness. A plate of homemade rice crackers that Mikasa recognized as the ones Sasha made when she was nervous because they required enough repetitive work to be meditative.
"You stress-cooked," Mikasa said.
"I was nervous," Sasha said.
Mikasa looked at her. "You've interviewed heads of state."
"I know." Sasha picked up a rice cracker and ate it. "Still nervous."
Mikasa set her bag down and looked at her friend, who was wearing the expression of someone trying to be professional about something they were personally invested in, which on Sasha's face had always been completely transparent.
"Sasha."
"I know, I know." She waved a hand. "Sit down. Eat something. Petra wants mic-check in ten."
Mikasa sat. Picked up something fried. Ate it because it smelled good and because Sasha needed her to.
Petra came out of the booth for the mic check with the directness of someone who had been in rooms with famous people long enough to have no residual awe of them. She adjusted something on Mikasa's lapel, said "relax your shoulders," waited, and went back to the booth.
The camera operator, a young man named Daz who Sasha had hired three years ago because, as she put it, he makes people forget he's there, did a slow pan and settled. Thumbs up through the lens.
From the corner the sound woman, whose name Mikasa had been given and immediately lost, gave her own thumbs up.
Sasha looked at Mikasa.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
***
They opened with the film.
It was called The Red String. Sasha had seen it the week before and had texted Mikasa afterwards, just: okay. okay. I need a minute. Which was the text Mikasa had been hoping for, not because she needed the validation but because it meant Sasha had felt the thing the film was trying to make you feel, and that was still, after everything, the only metric that mattered.
Sasha asked good questions. She mentioned upfront that she had read nothing in preparation, because she felt that reading about a film before talking to the person who made it created a layer between her and the actual conversation. She asked about what it had cost to make it, not financially, just... what it had cost. She asked about the ending, specifically, whether Mikasa had been afraid of it.
"I was terrified of it," Mikasa said. "Which is usually a sign that it's right."
Sasha nodded slowly. Looked at her hands. Looked back up. "I think it's the best thing you've ever done."
Mikasa was quiet for a moment. "I think so too," she said, which was not something she said easily or often, and the crew knew that, and the studio was briefly very still.
Then Sasha smiled, the full one. "Okay. I want people to see it."
"Good," Mikasa said.
"We'll put everything in the show notes." She was already moving on, leaving the film where it was, complete, not squeezing it. "Okay." She reached forward and picked up her coffee and settled back into the couch with the ease of someone shifting gears into the part of the conversation she had been looking forward to. "Last section. I need to ask you about your life because that's what we do here and also because I genuinely want to know."
"I know," Mikasa said.
"The kids first." Sasha leaned forward. "You have a five year old and a three year old. What is it actually like."
Mikasa's expression did the thing it did for very few topics, something that wasn't quite a smile but was warmer than her resting face, softer at the edges. "Loud," she said. "Constantly, structurally loud. I didn't know a three year old could have that many opinions about breakfast."
Sasha laughed. From the glass booth Petra's laugh was audible even through the soundproofing.
"The five year old is worse," Mikasa continued, with great composure. "She already knows when she's right and she'll wait you out. Indefinitely. No sense of urgency whatsoever."
"Where does she get that from," Sasha said, in a tone that suggested she already knew.
"Her father," Mikasa said.
More laughter from the booth. Daz's shoulders moved behind the camera.
"And the husband?" Sasha said. "How is he."
"He's good."
Sasha looked at her over the rim of her mug. Set it down. And then with the particular weight of someone arriving somewhere they had been heading for a while: "Your husband, Eren Yeager."
Mikasa looked at her. Perfectly straight-faced. "You mean my fake husband."
The studio went briefly sideways.
Sasha's laugh came out loud and startled, the real one. From the booth Petra made a sound. The sound woman in the corner put her face in her hand. Daz gave up on professional stillness for a moment.
"The PR relationship," Sasha managed.
"The elaborate corporate arrangement," Mikasa said, with great serenity. "Nine years of very committed performance."
"To what end," Sasha said, still laughing.
"I've never fully understood the theory," Mikasa said. "But apparently we both benefit somehow. Strategically."
"Very sophisticated," Sasha agreed, composing herself with visible effort. "Very long con."
"Very."
Sasha wiped her eyes. Took a breath. And then, beneath the laughter, settling into something more real: "Okay but... can we just talk about the timeline for a second. Because it was..." she paused, searching. "It started with the blind items, right? Around The Wall. And then people were shipping you, and then the same people decided it was all staged... and then." She stopped. Looked at Mikasa. "Silence. For a year. Nothing from either of you. And then we all just... found out you were already married. No announcement. No photos. Nothing. Just... married."
"Yes," Mikasa said.
"You were married," Sasha said. "Most people consider that statement-worthy."
Mikasa looked at her.
Sasha looked back.
The studio was quiet. Just the low ambient sound of the building and the city outside doing its unhurried March thing.
"We didn't feel the need to make a statement," Mikasa said.
From the booth, very faintly, Petra laughed again. A small, helpless sound.
Sasha shook her head slowly, the expression of someone who had known this woman for years and was still, occasionally, genuinely surprised by her. "Okay," she said. "Okay." She leaned forward on her elbows, completely unprofessional, completely herself. "So the blind items, the shipping, the silence, and then just... married. With no explanation."
Mikasa nodded.
"Because you didn't feel the need."
"Because we didn't feel the need."
Sasha held her gaze for a moment. Then, quietly, with the timing of someone who had been waiting six years for the right moment to ask this question: "How did it even start."
Something moved in Mikasa's face. Not reluctance. More like a door she had been standing in front of for a long time, deciding, and had just decided. She looked off camera, somewhere specific and warm, somewhere that existed outside this studio, in an apartment in the west twenties where two loud and opinionated children were currently in the care of their father who had said tell whatever you want to tell over coffee on a Sunday morning like it was the simplest thing.
She looked back at Sasha.
"It's a long story," she said.
"I have time," Sasha said. "We have a lot of time."
Mikasa picked up her water glass. Set it back down. And then the corner of her mouth moved, just slightly, and she looked off camera one more time, the look that Daz had already learned to hold for, warm and specific and directed at something no one else in the room could see.
When she looked back there was something open in her face that hadn't been there at the start of the hour.
Sasha leaned in. Lowered her voice, just slightly, like they were the only two people in the room even though they were not."Where do we even start?"
Mikasa laughed.
A real one. The kind that changed her whole face entirely, that Daz caught cleanly, that made the sound woman smile at her board and made Petra lean forward in the booth with the expression of someone who already knew this was going to be the episode.
Mikasa looked just off camera. Picking up something she had set down a long time ago and finding it, after everything, exactly as she had left it. Warm. Simple. Theirs.
Where do I start, she thought.
"The beginning," she said.
And then she told it.