Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Emerald eyes. The same emerald eyes, which never failed to remind her of the grass early in the morning, when last night’s rain drops hadn’t left the tips of the blades. Mikasa still remembered them. After seven years without them, she thought she would have gotten rid of the feeling he gave her when he looked at her with his eyes.
Eren had changed, in the fact that he looked like he had matured a lot more. Like Jean, his face had more shape to it. His cheekbones were much more defined now, along with his chin. He still kept his cute nose, however. His hair was surprisingly similar; brown, a little messy, but still cut to a reasonable length that didn’t make him look homeless. Not that she was looking, but Mikasa could tell he looked after his body, too. His shoulders were broad, and he was pretty skinny. He wore a plain white t-shirt, accompanied by a brown coffee stain, and a necklace, dangling from it was a sharp looking tooth, probably belonging to an animal. Dark blue skinny occupied his legs, and blue and white loafers were what he was wearing for shoes. His fashion sense had never left, Mikasa thought.
Her mind flashes with vibrant images, memories, each one of them filled to the brim with Eren. His smile, the way he laughed, the way he gave a flirty grin in Mikasa’s direction in class. Her heart filled with sadness as she recalled each and every memory she had of him, as she was frightened at the thought of Eren being a completely different person. She would have to start over from scratch, learning every little thing about him, his new smile, his new laugh, his new flirty grin. It would all be different. And that was something Mikasa hated that she had to accept.
The raven pondered if Eren was having the same thoughts she was having, in the zero point two seconds he glanced at her. He knew she was there, but for some reason, decided to not acknowledge her.
Eren dashed up to Jean and playfully grabbed the neckline of his t-shirt. Scrunched up in his hand, Eren pushed Jean back a little. Jean stuttered out a laugh.
“Eren, hey, man, I’m sorry, but that was pretty funny!” He said giggling, holding both of his rather large hands up in defense. Eren sank his head down into Jean’s chest, and laughed. Mikasa was pleasantly surprised to find out that his laugh was a little deeper, which was to be expected, but still had some of that younger chuckle in it.
“You’re an actual ass hat, you know that?” Eren said, still giggling.
“Couldn’t of said it better myself.” Annie mumbled. Eren sighed, moving away from Jean and striding back out of the door.
“I’m getting the shopping, Ar, come and help me.” He left Mikasa’s constant gaze without a glance backwards.
“I guess we’re off then. Giddy up, horsie.” Annie gave a smirk to Jean, as he rolled his eyes, playing along, by pretending to trot hooves along the ground. Annie laughed, after receiving a kiss on the cheek from Armin. They left soon after, bidding a quick farewell to Mikasa, and Armin followed, but stood in the door, about to shut the door.
“We won’t be long, Mikasa.” He gave her a reassuring smile, as he shut the door with a light click.
Mikasa looked around the small flat, the sudden silence almost a deafening blow. Mikasa placed her finished cup on the bar, her throat begging for more. She slowly slid out of her assigned seat, and walked the short distance around the bar. She paused in front of a few cupboards, desperately trying to remember where Annie had gotten specific things from. She took a guess, opening the left cupboard, to find what she was looking for.
She boiled the water, placing the coffee in the water. It was an odd way of making it, but it’s how she preferred it. She leaned against the counter, the way Jean had done so a small while ago. Mikasa sighed, ruffling her hair up a little, so it had volume. Out of nowhere, the words of the wise old man, Hannes, popped into her head.
“You know what I think? In the ten minutes I’ve met with you, I’ve already picked up on the fact that you’re strong. Stronger than most, even. You of course don’t think that at all. But its okay, whatever is troubling you, it’ll pass. As for now, the kind of redemption you’re looking for isn’t in your peers; it’s found in yourself. Before you can let them forgive you, you need to forgive yourself first. That’s the only way you can move on from whatever it is that’s keeping you up most nights.”
Maybe nervousness was the cause of her sweaty hands. Eren was so close to her those few minutes ago, and yet he still seemed so far away from her reach. She placed her soft hands on her face, cowering over, shaking her head. Mikasa took a deep breath, and looked up. The water was seemingly taking forever to boil, so Mikasa took up her constant urge to go explore.
She longed to go and search around either of the boys rooms, but immediately knew it was a step too far into their private lives. Mikasa stuck with the surroundings she had become acquainted with, making her way over to the thing in the room that was the most vibrant to her.
Photographs. A fair few of them, pinned to a brown wood board. There were ones with funny little drawings on them in a red pen, like mustaches and always glasses on Armin. Mikasa had no idea she was smiling, searching through all of these photos. There were of course a few of Armin and Annie, and lots of photo bombs. It seemed like the four of them were pretty tight. Some of them had captions, definitely written by Armin, like ‘Off to the beach!’ with them all sitting in a car. Eren was pulling a ridicules face, Armin was giving a familiar cheesy grin, Jean was swearing and Annie was deep in a book, not looking into the lens. After digging, and seeing countless photos of the four of them, Mikasa found a photo, underneath all the others, that nearly made her choke. Giving it a light tug, it fell easily into her hand.
It was a picture of back then. They were all in their school uniforms, and almost everyone was there. Marco was clearly the one taking the photo, half of his face being right in frame, yet the other half being cut off, and he was giving a smiley grin, showing his teeth. Eren had his arms around Armin and Mikasa, Armin giving the same smile, but Mikasa looking unimpressed, off to the side, in a gaze. The whole 104th class, together in one photo, everyone being assigned to their typical stereotypes. Mikasa couldn’t figure out why she looked so depressed while everyone else around her was happy. In desperate search of an answer, Mikasa flipped the photo over.
In an unfamiliar handwriting, were the words,
The last photo of the 104th class, together, and happy, as how they should be remembered.
The raven’s pupils engulfed the writing as they widened at the sudden memory.
“Hey Mikasa, are you okay?” Eren asked worriedly. Mikasa blew him off, slightly waving her hand in reassurance.
“I’m okay, really,” She said blankly, still gazing at nothing.
Eren sighed. “But you seem really-“
“I said I’m fine!” Mikasa snapped, perhaps a little too harshly. Eren mumbled a whatever, and feeling bad, Mikasa went to apologise, but Hitch had taken his attention. She scowled and looked away again. The wind blew through her hair, as she blinked slowly, taking in her surroundings. Her high school field was always a lovely place to be, as there were so many cherry blossom trees that never failed to bloom earlier than usual. Mikasa took beauty in that.
Laughter could be heard all around her. The Terrible Two were at it again, Sasha laughing because Connie had gotten cream off of his cupcake onto his nose. Ymir and Christa were cuddling, listening to Oluo going on about some hot girl he'd met at the weekend. Gunther and Eld being in their own world, playing a game together on either ones phones. Mina, Thomas, Reiner, Marco, Berthold, Hitch, Eren and Armin were playing truth or dare. Eruptions of loud laughter could be heard every once and a while, but even with all this positivity, Mikasa still felt like there was her own personal rain cloud over her that day, that kept showering her with terrible thoughts.
She wished she was ill like Jean was, so she could have skipped this useless trip that they were forever waiting for.
“Truth or dare, Marco?” Hitch practically purred.
“Dare,” He squeaked.
Hitch hummed for a minute, and then lit up with a mischievous grin. “I dare you to take a picture of the whole class together.”
“That’s hardly a dare, Hitch!” Eren called out. She shrugged.
“It was the only thing I could think of.”
Marco beamed a scared smile. “Uh sure, I’ll do it, but I don’t have a camera-“
“Use mine!” Armin piped up.
Marco nodded as he got handed the camera. He leapt up from his seat, and jogged in front of everyone sitting down. Finally managing to get everyone in the shot, he screamed out.
“Hey, everyone!”
Despite her rudeness, Eren still hang an arm over Mikasa’s shoulder, though she did not look up for the photo. Grabbing everyone else attention, Marco snapped the photo, and everyone gave a small cheer before laughing out.
“Today is going to be a good day, I can feel it!” Eren said, possibly to no one. Mikasa heard, but couldn’t agree. She wanted more than anything to end this day.
Hearing a light “Mikasa” through the apartment door, she panicked, sloppily putting the photo back in its original place.
“Yeah,” She answered as the door opened. Armin walked in, placing full bags of shopping on the bar. He smiled, wiping sweat of his brow, when he realized what Mikasa had been looking at.
“Those photos, you like them?”
Mikasa gave a small smile, looking down and fumbling her hands together. “Yeah,” She walked slowly over to her original seat. “It’s cute that you have something like that.”
Armin smiled in response. The smell of coffee filled the air around them, as Eren walked in, kicking the door shut with his foot. Mikasa awkwardly climbed onto her stall, as Armin checked the pot of boiling coffee.
“I’m changing,” Eren announced, still not acknowledging Mikasa as he walked passed her, and shut the door to his room. Armin poured out into Mikasa’s and his own cup.
“Smells good,” He said, as Eren came back out of his room, wearing a similar shirt, but with no coffee stain. “Wait, the pot was empty, so who made it, was it Annie?”
Mikasa shook her head. “I was still kind of thirsty, so I made some myself, I hope you don’t mind.” Armin moved out of the way so Eren could get out a cup from the cupboard.
“Not at all! It’s almost as good as Annie’s!”
Mikasa smirked. “Almost as good, huh?”
Mikasa glanced at Eren as he filled his cup with her coffee. It splashed a little down the side, making Eren frown.
“Did you make this?” Eren asked her. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting his first words to her in seven years would be, but it certainly wasn’t that. Maybe a hug, or words on how well she looked.
Mikasa gave a shy, small nod. “Yeah, I did,” Not looking at him, but down at her cup. He tasted it, and his expression didn’t change.
“It’s good.”
“Thank you.”
The exchange of words felt extremely forced and robotic. It was as if someone else were typing out their thoughts, and all they had to do was say them. The raven hated everything about this. The constant stench of awkwardness in the air. Mikasa resented this with everything she had, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it. It wasn’t like before, where she could openly speak her mind. She had to be careful about what she said, nothing rude or intrusive.
Armin, the angel, desperately tried to move away from the stench of awkwardness in the air. “Hey, let’s move to the couch. My legs ache from standing,” He said pulling away and walking over to the couch, so he could flop down. “That shopping was super heavy Eren!”
Eren smirked closing his eyes before walking over and flopping down next to Armin, his coffee spilling a little. “No it wasn’t your just weak.”
Armin swotted Eren while he laughed. “Watch it, jackass,” Armin looked up at Mikasa. “Come and sit down with us, Mikasa.”
She nodded quickly, joining them on the opposite sofa. She placed her coffee carefully down on the wobbly table. Recalling that she wanted to know the story behind the missing table leg, she looked up at Armin as she sat down, hands folded on her lap. She gave him a puzzling look, and he laughed.
“Ah yes, the famous missing table leg. I thought I was pretty clever stacking it up with old books!” He said with a bright smile, while Eren rolled his eyes.
“What...what happened?”
Armin sighed, still smiling. “Eren and Jean were play fighting, and –“
“Honestly you make me sound like I’m a five year old!” Eren butted in, protesting.
“You might as well be,” Armin muttered, although Eren still heard. “Anyway, they were play fighting, and I came home to see Jean push Eren a little too hard, and he fell backwards onto the table, sitting on it, and the leg collapsed on itself. I was furious at them, of course.”
“I bet you act like the Dad around here, huh.” Mikasa boldly stated.
Armin smiled looking down at his coffee. “Yeah I guess so, I don’t mind though. I love them both dearly.”
“Thank you, Daddy!” Eren said in a high pitched voice. Armin swooped his head back and gave Eren a disgusted look as he laughed.
“Okay, I take it back, it’s weird and creepy.”
“You like it really, don’t you, Daddy,”
Armin shook his head, his hair moving with him. “Okay, cut it out Eren!”
Mikasa could no longer contain her laughter she had been holding for a fairly long amount of time. She covered her hand over her mouth, still trying to stifle her laugh. Armin looked at her and smiled, titling his head slightly. He was happy to see her happy, reunited with her old best friends.
Eren’s wide eyes kept watching her flushed face giggle. He seemed star struck. Her laugh, the same thing he always remembered as his favorite sound, still remained his favorite after all this time. It was just as beautiful as he recalled it to be.
“I’m...sorry...” She said through breaths. “Seems like you two still have it, huh.” Her gaze flickered between Armin and Eren, landing on Eren’s wide emeralds, and seeing the gaze her held made her face feel hot. She suddenly found her feet very interesting.
“I guess you could say that,” Armin looked at Eren, who was in a trance with Mikasa. He nudged him slightly, and he snapped out of it, blushing a little. Armin smiled, picking up on this.
He could tell Eren’s affections for Mikasa hadn’t left entirely just by the way he looked at her. Armin knew Eren always used to find her beautiful, because he told him. He guessed that hadn’t left him, either. He used to drone on and on about how pretty she looked in class, or how her laugh was like music to his ears. Eren thought Armin never listened to him, because he voiced this a couple of time, but Armin was always listening, in case one day Eren lost faith in her, and had to be reminded of why he thought Mikasa was something special to him.
“Hey, do you remember when you two, and Marco used to-“
Armin’s smiled dropped at the memory of Marco, which spiked more memories of his class. Eren’s whole head dropped, as he muttered a curse.
“Wait, what’s up? What did I-“Her eyes widened at the realisation at what she just said. She brought them up again. Her hand flew up to her mouth, and she was about to burst out an apology, Eren beat her to it.
“I just remembered the real reason you’re here,” He paused, looking up and directly into her eyes. “When Armin told me you wanted to meet with me, he said something about second chances, and how everyone should at least get one. Hearing his- Marco’s name, makes me hate you with everything I have. What you did, makes me hate you with everything I have. But, I’m more mature than I was back then. I respect Armin and what he said deeply, so here. No apologies cut the bullshit. Tell us what happened that day.”
Mikasa looked at Armin in hopes of a word from him, but he said nothing. She knew this would come eventually, and the butterflies in her stomach became restless. She gathered that they would hate her afterwards, and no matter how much she battled with herself, that was something she had to accept. She didn’t come to get her friends back, she came to give answers.
She gulped, starting her sentence. “Back then, I was a selfish, jealous girl with a horribly impatient head. I don’t know who you saw me as, but that’s all I thought I was. That day was the day my mother got admitted into the hospital.”
Armin and Eren’s eyes widened. “But you told us it was ages ago after that!”
“I didn’t feel like telling anyone the real truth. I wanted to go see her, but my Father made me go to school, which I hated him for. I was moody the whole morning, and I recall barely talking to anyone. I wanted with all my heart to just visit her, but I couldn’t. I wanted to get out of the trip so badly, to find an excuse to go home so I could see her. If the trip was cancelled then I knew I could beg my Father to take me. I know now it was for my own good that he didn’t take me, I was being selfish.
“It also didn’t help my mood that...that Hitch was flirting with you, Eren, the whole time. I used to have a, uh, crush on you, and uh, well it made me jealous that you let her all over you. I was pretty much sick of this ‘trip’ by now, so when we stopped for gas, I...I...”
Tears glistened down her soft cheeks, as she tried to wipe them away with her wrist. She finally let out a sob she had been holding in. “I went to the tire’s and...I pulled out the bolts from each side, tossing them away, “Another sob. “In hopes the bus would break down, so I could get picked up and go home. I had no idea that...”
Eren’s eyes had own tears in them, Armin’s oceans were wide as they could ever be. Eren shook his head, looking down and scrunching up his eyes.
The coach jiggled about, as Mikasa rested her head against the cold window. Laughter could be heard from all around her, but she couldn’t join in. She started to wonder if what she did would even affect the coach at all.
“Hey, Mikasa!” Armin squeaked. She sighed, turning her head back. As she did so, there was a loud jolt, and the coach wobbled, and sunk to one side. Armin and Mikasa looked at each other with wide eyes. The coach sunk even lower, Mikasa lifting slightly off of her seat. Extremely loud screeching and scraping could be heard from outside, and some of the children squealed. Mr Smith stood us, holding onto the seats as he desperately tried to calm the class.
The coach sunk lower at the back, and the scraping was even louder. Mikasa was panicking as most of the teens were. She slightly lifted off her seat, noticing that the front wheel was missing. Her eyes filled with tears. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the same had happened to the back tire. The coach, still going incredibly fast as they were on the motorway, started tipping to the side. The class started screaming, as Mikasa saw the bus driver frantically trying to get control of the steering wheel, although there was nothing he could do. The coach was at a fifty degree angle, finally toppling over, smashing into a barrier for safety, and completely obliterating it.
Mikasa felt as if she were in a washing machine, tumbling over and over. A few desperate screams could be heard, but the seatbelts did barely anything. Most were out of their seat, flying about the coach. Mikasa hit her head hard on a piece of smashed window that came flying at her, and everything went black.
Mikasa was sobbing hard. “I’m so, so sorry, for what I did. No excuses can be made for me, I’m disgusting.”
Eren slammed his fist on the coffee table, making all of the mugs spill. “You know, after all this time, I still kept this little piece of doubt in my mind that it wasn’t you, that it wasn’t your fault. I didn’t...I didn’t want to believe that it was your fault. But...hearing that, sickens me. Your selfish ways took away so many innocent lives.” He started to raise his voice.
“Eren,” Armin said, clawing his arm.
“Trust me, it burdens me every day. There’s not a day where I don’t feel with the weight of it on my shoulders-“
“Good!” Eren said standing up, leaning over slightly toward her. “That’s all you deserve, you selfish bitch!” He shouted. Mikasa’s eyes widened, filling up with fresh tears.
“Eren! Leave her alone!” Armin pleaded from his space on the couch.
“I’m so...I’m so...ANGRY! YOU SHOULD BE THE ONE DEAD, NOT THEM!” He kicked the table out of the way, the books falling with it. Coffee splashed a little up Mikasa’s leg. He stood over, raising his fist in the air. Mikasa screamed, holding her arms in a cross formation over her head to protect her for what was about to come. She turned her head to the side and scrunched her eyes.
“EREN, NO!” Armin stood up and pulled Eren’s fist away from Mikasa. “Look at me, look at me Eren. Eren!” Armin pleaded, holding his hot fist in-between both of his hands. He was breathing very heavily, and Armin looked over Eren’s shoulder at Mikasa. Studying his worried expression, Eren looked back, following Armin’s eyes. Mikasa was still sobbing, her hands covering her face. Muffled noises could still be heard.
Eren tore away from Armin’s grip, and walked to his room, slamming the door. Armin made his way over to Mikasa, bending down to her height.
“I think it’s best if you go home now, for you and Eren, okay?” He said, rubbing her knee. After gaining no response but sobbing, he sighed and stood up, shuffling his way over to Eren’s room. He gave one last glance back at Mikasa before closing the door. She hadn’t moved.
She lifted her head after hearing the door shut. Muffled swear words could be heard through the thin walls, as Mikasa arose from her seat. She made her way through the living room to the door, and opened it. Giving one last look back, she left the apartment.