Archive of Our Own

As always, Eren is late. It’s fine, there’s no set time for them to meet exactly. But he did tell her that he’d stop by after his classes today, and his last one is chemistry lab, which Mikasa knows only goes until 4pm.

It’s now 7pm, and she’s been rereading the same paragraph in her computational analysis textbook for twenty minutes. It’s not that the theory is necessarily difficult, but she’s trying to use schoolwork to distract herself from looking at her phone, and it’s not working.

Eren doesn’t really use social media, but she wishes he did. Then maybe she would know who he was out with right now, whether he was purposefully avoiding her or if he just doesn’t care to let her know what he’s up to in the time when they’re not together.

This was their arrangement, the one she specifically asked for. Casual sex only, no strings attached. Not even friendship, she explained to him, because it was obvious they had nothing in common, and there was no need to explore that any further.

Mikasa doesn’t regret it because she knows the type of guy Eren is: effortlessly handsome, well-off, roguish and carefree, and she knows that nothing good could come from getting too close to men of that sort. She’s not an idiot. Guys like Eren have no reason to commit, and therefore, she’d rather set the rules ahead of time to avoid the heartache.

There’s a knock on her apartment door around 8:30pm, after she’s spent over an hour ruminating on whether she should text him back. All he said to her was Coming over after class later. That was at 11am.

She supposes it’s her own fault for not clarifying exactly when, but, in her defense, she was afraid if she sent another text, she wouldn’t get anything back and then later would be forced to double text if she was wondering where he was. It just ended up that instead of two texts, she sent none.

“Hey,” he says, smiling at her like he’s right on time. He’s wearing jeans and an oversized t-shirt, likely whatever outfit he had on while he was out today. Mikasa is in a big hoodie and tiny boxer shorts. No makeup, her hair down around her face. She doesn’t get dressed up for him. She doesn’t want him to think that she cares what he thinks of her.

“Hey.” She steps back to let him in through the door. Her apartment is clean, but it’s just because she’s a neat person. Anyway, the sterility of her empty white countertops lends itself to what she wants Eren to understand about her place. Nothing good can grow here, so he shouldn’t even try.

He drops his book bag down on the floor by where she was studying on her couch and turns to her, leaning against the wall next to her bedroom door.

They stare at each other for a while, like two circling lions sizing up the other. Eren with his mane of hair sticking out from his low bun that looks misplaced with how clean the rest of him is. He told her that he was trying out something new after she asked when he was planning to get it cut a couple months ago. She can’t tell if it’s working for him, or if it just works for her because it’s him.

“I missed you today,” he says.

That gets a laugh out of her. “It’s not good to lie, Eren.”

For a second, his smile falters. His eyes roam down her body, and even though there’s not much of her exposed, she can feel his gaze on her bare legs, undressing her from the hoodie she has on. His hoodie, the one he left here when they first started this, and then never asked for back.

He reaches out for it with an outstretched arm, and she’s magnetized to him, her feet moving over air. Once she’s close enough, he grabs the hem of it, his hand coming up and under to grasp at the side of her hip while the fabric is still between his fingers. He pulls her toward him.

His neck bends so that when he speaks, it’s against her ear. “This is mine, you know.”

Mikasa’s stomach flips. He toys with the flimsy waistband of her shorts and slides a finger beneath it, pressing into her skin. Her hands come up to his chest, and she knows that if he touches her any further down, he’ll feel how wet she is for him. She’s been thinking up scenarios, recalling memories of them for the last hour. They only ever do one thing together.

“So take it back then,” she challenges.

And then he’s ripping it over her head, exposing her bare chest to the cool air of her living room. Pressing a deep kiss to her open mouth. He undresses her right there, pulling her sleep shorts and underwear down to her knees. She can feel the wet drag of them on her inner thighs before they fall to the floor and she steps out from them.

Eren pulls away, breaking their kiss and raking his eyes up and down her nude form. Finally, he smiles again, like he’s won something. “Jesus, you’re so fucking hot.”

He fucks her right there in her living room, first against the wall, then again on her couch with her homework papers haphazardly pushed off onto the floor. After she comes so hard that her face feels numb and the world buzzes around her, he carries her into her room and eats her out on the bed like a gentleman.

They sleep together, with his arms around her middle, snoring lightly into her shoulder.

By the time she wakes, he’s gone.

-

They met at a party, like most people who have their sort of agreement do. She was out with Sasha and Jean that night, and it was the end of their first semester of college. If anyone asked, she would say that they dragged her out, but truthfully, she wanted to go. She had spent the entire term locked in her dorm room, trying to navigate three different math and coding classes at the same time, desperately trying to keep up her grades to meet the minimum requirements of her scholarship.

But that night, she wanted to let loose a little, live the life that most college students did. She was no stranger to drinking or the various methods of getting high. She had phases in high school before she was accepted to Mitras University and had to move out of her little town in the mountains. It was different now though, that she had an opportunity to change her life. There was a pressure there to live up to all that might be possible for her.

She had briefly considered fucking Jean that night. She could tell he wanted it, by the way his eyes lingered too long on her lips, how his hands hovered above her arm, the small of her back, waiting for her signal to do more. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and she desperately needed human touch.

The party was at someone’s house, someone with a family that could afford a wine cellar in the basement and a winding staircase that led to an entertainment room with a balcony that overlooked the cityscape. It was early in the night, people were still arriving, but there were cans and plastic cups already littering nearly every flat surface. Mikasa recognized some of the people already there from her various classes, but most of them she had never seen before.

It was anxiety-inducing to be amidst such a big crowd. Before she moved here, the world seemed to unwind itself for miles and miles before she would cross paths with another person. Now, wherever she stepped, there was someone shoving her out of the way.

As had happened to her while she was huddled in their little three-person group—someone’s shoulder pushed her off balance, spilling her spiked punch onto Jean’s white shirt.

“Hey!” She whipped around to glare at the person who’d invaded her space. It was a boy, brown hair cropped short at the sides, getting shoved playfully by his friends as he passed. “You just made me spill my drink!”

He was laughing when she yelled at him, but then he stilled, his face settling into something open and curious. He looked at her like he should recognize her, but then he must have realized that he didn’t because his gaze wandered to Jean, trying to dab the red from his quickly staining shirt. He put his hands up. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Jeager, what the hell.” Jean shook his head at the other boy, looking down at himself in annoyance.

“I didn’t mean to! Just go upstairs to my room and grab any one of my shirts that you like. You can keep it.” His tone was so conciliary, so appeasing. Jean grumbled something to Mikasa about being right back, and then he was taking the steps two at a time up to the second floor, moving like he already knew the place.

The other boy, Jeager, was still looking at her, probably wondering what a stranger was doing at his house. He smiled at her, and her chest seized. The crinkle of his eye, his singular dimple, all his pretty, straight teeth.

“My name’s Eren,” he said, sticking out his hand to her. She stared at it, so foreign to her. Hadn’t she just yelled at him? “What’s yours?”

She grabbed it, if only because there was nothing else for her to do, and was immediately overcome by how comfortable it was to touch him. “Mikasa,” she breathed.

“Mick-asa?”

Her hand was still in his. He didn’t seem in a rush to let it go.

She shook her head. “No, Mika-sa.”

“Mikasa,” he repeated, and then seemed pleased with himself when she nodded. “Mikasa, can I give you a house tour?”

She turned around to look at Sasha, but it seemed the other girl had already migrated back toward the snack bar in the kitchen. Eren’s friends had all begun talking amongst themselves, unconcerned with him.

“Sure,” she responded, again, if only because there was nothing else for her to do.

-

His hand was on her lower back immediately, touching her like they were already familiar. With anyone else, it might have put her off, but with Eren, it just felt natural.

It was strange to her, how the way he spoke happened to sneak its way directly into her ear, not because he was so close, but because she felt a need to listen. He walked her around the downstairs, showing her the living room, the in-home theater, standing by the window that overlooked the large backyard pool as they watched the crowds of people loitering around it, some of them diving in.

He told her he was a pre-med, that his father and brother were both surgeons, that he would probably become one as well. When she told him she was studying computer science and statistics, he took a hard look at her before responding.

“Are you sure we haven’t met before? I just feel like… I know you from somewhere...” He seemed incredulous even as he said it, trailing off like he was searching for an answer.

“I don’t think so. I grew up in a little mountain town you’ve probably never heard of before. And then I spent the entire semester holed up in my dorm.” She shrugged. “Plus, I think I’d remember if I met you before.”

“Right. Me too.” He shook his own head, as if to shake himself free of the idea, and then led her up a secret passageway that he made her swear not to tell anyone else.

He brought her to a private viewing room, like an attic to the house except all the walls were made of windows. It was something of a greenhouse, filled with plants and flowers, a row of misters overhead. A singular cushioned bench sat at the front facing window, and he invited her to sit down, getting in next to her so that she was aware of the distance between their thighs.

They looked at the waxing moon for a bit, though the night sky was polluted by light. “My mom would kill me if she knew I brought a girl up here. This is her sanctuary.”

Mikasa wanted to say that he didn’t need to show her something so special to have sex with her. She already planned on letting him the moment he grasped her hand. But not wanting to sound presumptuous, she asked, “Where are they? Your family?”

“Zeke, my brother, is in Marley right now finishing up his residency. My parents are…” He stops to think, “probably in the Mid-East, right now? I’m not sure. They’re usually traveling.”

“It must be lonely to live in this big house by yourself,” she commented without thinking. She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth.

Eren shrugged, though his shoulders seemed heavy with more than nonchalance. “Hannes, our house manager, comes around most days. And there’s Lara,” he said, not elaborating further. “Besides, it doesn’t feel so empty right now with you here.”

When she peeked over at him, he was already looking at her. He was looking at her, and she was looking at him, and then his mouth was on hers, and her hands were around his shoulders, and his were against the sensitive place between her hips and pelvis, holding her down like he was afraid she’d run.

She begged him to fuck her right then and there, but he refused, saying something about how the floor was sticky with humidity and plant soil. He walked her to the other door, down another set of stairs to an adjoining room with a king-sized bed, filled with things that looked like they belonged to real adults.

“This is my parents room,” he said, unbothered by it as he unbuttoned her jeans. Then he continued, between the trail of kisses he left on her neck and shoulder, “It’s the only place here that’s private.”

And that’s how she was fucked by him for the first time in his parents’ bed, screaming and drooling into what must be his mother’s pillow. He didn’t use a condom, apologizing to her afterward as she pulled her pants back on. It wasn’t his fault, really. She was in such a frenzy for him that she’d gotten on top at first and lined his cock up at her entrance. She started fucking herself on it without much other preparation before he flipped them over.

Truthfully, she had been so dazed that it hadn’t even occurred to her yet. It was just luck that her period started the day after, and as far as she was aware, he hadn’t given her any STDs.

All she knew in the moments after she was coherent again was that she needed to leave, that there was no way she could stay in that bed with him for even a second longer. Danger flashed red behind her eyelids, panic twisting itself up her spine. Eren Jeager would hurt her, she knew it to be true like she knew her own tendency to run. It felt stronger than a premonition, like a memory of another life.

He had said something else to her as she was leaving, but she didn’t process his words over her own footsteps, retracing the way he showed her in.

That night, Mikasa got back to her dorm without telling anyone else that she’d left the party, and she swore to herself that she would never see him again. His phantom touches were still lingering on her skin, and she knew, like an addict, if she ever saw him a second time she wouldn’t be able to help herself.

-

Another semester passed with her holed up in her dorm, studying equations and proofs and near archaic computational languages. She was awarded the Dean’s Honor for being in the top 99th percentile of her class, and then she moved off campus.

Every so often, she’d see a tall boy with brown hair and wide shoulders from the corner of her eye, and she’d startle until she realized that it wasn’t him.

Jean told her, begrudgingly, that Eren had asked him to pass along her number, and whether that was okay with her. She told him, No, please don’t. When she saw concern flash in his eyes, she shook her head. It wasn’t like that. He was fine. I just—don’t wanna get involved, you know? It was just a one time thing.

Unfortunately, Jean took that to mean he was free to continue pursuing her. It was after another one of their study dates turned awkward, a little too tense, by Jean asking for the third time whether she’d be interested in spending time with him outside of schoolwork that she told him, It’s not you. I just really can’t commit to anything right now.

It was true. She felt her days and her mind were already filled to the brim with everything she had to do just to stay at the school. She couldn’t afford a distraction. Before that, Jean was one of the few friends she really cared about, who seemed unbothered, at least at first, by the fact that she drew lines around herself. She didn’t want to get the world on her, lest it stain something deeper than fabric.

But, you spend enough time with another person and one of you is bound to develop feelings deeper than acquaintanceship. Of course, he was hurt, and he said they would still be friends, but that he needed some time away from her.

It was lonelier, but easier at the same time, studying by herself. She would pass by tables filled with people who had their books out but were obviously chatting instead of learning. She wondered what it would be like to be them, to not need to earn her place. Quickly, she hushed those feelings away with a reminder of gratitude. She was lucky to be there.

-

It was just weeks into her third term when the sight of him stopped her cold. She had been heading up to the quiet floor to grab a cubicle alone, forced to traverse the path through the open gathering spaces first.

He was sitting next to a girl—beautiful, blonde, doe-eyed. He looked at ease with her, his elbow resting against the back edge of her chair. He said something that made the entire table laugh, and the girl smacked his chest with the back of her hand.

For some stupid reason, the act of them touching made her keel over. She grabbed at her chest, feeling the wool of her sweater suddenly scratch against her skin. It was difficult to breathe.

She’d never seen him at the library before, though she supposed it was bound to happen. It was just by pure coincidence that she’d noticed him today, and it felt like a sort of punishment.

Standing far enough away that she was still shrouded by the building’s support beams and decorative plants, she couldn’t help but stare. Eren Jeager. He looked like he was an athlete in high school. He wore a faded, red hoodie and jeans. The type that looked soft and structured at the same time, denoting its high quality. The group of friends he was sitting with all seemed like the type who chose their majors by what aligned with their interests and curiosity, with no regard for what it would mean for them after school was over, because they hadn’t needed to consider their lives so far in advance.

Mikasa was being unkindly judgemental of these people she’d never met, and she knew it. But it just seemed like what was fair. If she couldn’t have what they did, at the very least, she should get to hate them for it.

After a beat too long, she knew it was time to leave. Enough feeling sorry for herself. That, too, was a distraction from her work.

She tried to shake herself of it, physically pulling off her scrunchie and letting her hair fall down to her shoulders. No more wondering about Eren Jeager and who else he decided to sleep with, she commanded herself. It was none of her business.

She turned around and decided that she needed to find another way upstairs, one that didn’t require him to cross her line of sight.

She stared down at her feet, willing them to walk, her legs feeling like they were caught in wet cement. Like her body was holding her there against her will.

Two, three steps away, and then she felt a hand on her shoulder, her name in the shape of his voice.

“Wait—Mikasa.”

She whipped around, and he dropped his hand from her immediately, looking at his own appendage like it was his first time seeing it.

He must have caught her looking at him. How embarrassing, she thought. She steeled herself for whatever he was about to say next, and if it was a reprimand for being a creep, she deserved it.

“I found you.” His voice teetered between surprise and relief.

“You found me…” she repeated, in her echo an inquisition. She turned back to look over at the table where he was just sitting, now with an empty spot. How had he disappeared and reappeared so quickly?

A couple of his friends turned to look at them. Even after Mikasa turned away, she could feel the blonde girl’s gaze like a laser against the side of her head.

“You’re really elusive. I was starting to wonder whether you even existed.” He stared at her, blinking often, his hands awkward at his sides.

Elusive, he said. What a vocab word. One that implies she was somehow evading him, though that didn’t seem right.

“Eren, hi. Um, how are you?”

“So you remember me then?” he said in a rush, sounding eager.

Mikasa chuckled. “It’s hard to forget a guy with a greenhouse attic.”

A pink flush crept up his neck. “Right. Well, I was hoping to talk to you.”

Mikasa made a gesture with her chin back to the table where he had been sitting, where she was sure there was a petite blonde still watching them.

“Is your girlfriend okay with us talking?”

“My…?” He glanced back over her shoulder, then shook his head with a panic-like vigor. “No. That’s not—that’s Historia, my cousin. Well, technically she’s Zeke’s cousin, but she’s like my cousin, too. My parents told her to keep an eye on me and report back, so that’s why she’s being like that. But she—“ Eren’s hands clenched into fists, taking deep breaths in through his nose. After a long exhale, he says, “I’m single. Like, so single. I’m not even interested in anyone, and especially not someone who’s my relative.”

Mikasa tilted her head to the side, intrigued by his word vomit. Someone clipped the side of Eren’s shoulder with theirs. People surrounding them started to clear their throats as they stepped by the both of them. From where they stood, they blocked the path toward the stairs.

Eren didn’t seem concerned. He just continued staring at her, waiting. She reached out to grab his forearm, pulling him off to the side and out of the way, into a secluded corner where she felt the burden of a certain stranger’s gaze lessened.

He went willingly, chasing after her even. He stood so close to her that she was worried someone might glance over and think they were doing something improper.

“Let’s talk then,” she said. She had an itch to reach out to him, hold his hand in hers, soothe the back of his knuckles. She clasped her fingers together in front of her instead.

Eren nodded, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. “I just—I needed to tell you that I’m sorry. I really messed up that first night we met, and I’ve been thinking about you since then. If there’s anything I can do… I want to make it up to you. Well, I—I just mean, I want to see you again.”

He was lightly panting, breathing open mouthed, looking down at her for a second or so at a time, then glancing away. She just stared at him, not quite understanding what he wanted from her. At her silence, he continued, as if there was more he wanted to say but couldn't, “Please.”

She could feel the tension in him, hot and urgent, as he waited for a response. She was right about herself the first time. If she ever saw this boy again, she wouldn’t be able to help herself.

She cracked a smile at him. “Was the pussy that good?”

His reaction was immediate. He exhaled a shaky laugh, turning his face over his shoulder as if to hide himself. His eyes and cheeks were bright when he looked back down at her. His voice was breathless as he said, “Yes. It was. It was really good.”

-

She gave him her number. He texted asking her out to dinner. She told him to forgo the food and just come over to her place.

-

It was stupid how good Eren was at contorting her body into an orgasm. It was like he didn’t even need to try. His cock was perfect, thick and long in just the right amounts, but it wasn’t just that. He seemed to have an inhuman sense of how she needed to be touched, even from the very beginning.

That first time after they connected again, he seemed repentant. He refused to let Mikasa coax him into putting it in right away. Instead, he fucked her with his fingers, his mouth, pinning down her hips when she thrust them up into his face, begging for release. He edged her on for so long that she started to feel delirious, sputtering nonsense about how good she would be for him if he fucked her, how badly she needed him, and only then did he give it to her.

He had brought condoms, but Mikasa didn’t want to use them. Just pull out, she told him, and he did as she said. He fucked her through multiple orgasms, fast and brutal when she needed it, and then gently, unhurriedly the second time. She didn’t think he could make her do it a third, but he tilted her hips up and pushed her legs back behind her ears, and she screamed so hard she was afraid her next door neighbor might hear.

He asked her to get breakfast with him the next day, and then she told him: I hope I didn’t give you the wrong idea, but I’m not interested in anything serious right now.

The way his face fell would’ve cracked a hole in another girl’s chest. Mikasa was different though. What semblance of a heart she was supposed to have was behind a chain-linked fence, bolted down in titanium.

She felt a little guilty, but not enough. Only when it seemed like he wouldn’t be able to leave her apartment on those terms, she explained to him the situation with her scholarship. I don’t really have time for another commitment. Once I graduate, things might be different, but for now…

She told Eren that she’d like to see him again, as long as he understood the conditions. They could be non-exclusive. He was allowed to be with anyone else that he wanted, wouldn’t that be the dream? He didn’t smile at her joke like she expected him to.

He just asked her how often she’d want to see him, and it surprised her a bit, that he was already planning for the next time.

I dunno. Whenever you want, I guess? She shrugged. She knew that people generally only wanted what they couldn’t have. Once he knew that he had access to her anytime, he’d stop being interested. It was impossible that a boy like him didn’t have a dozen other prospects lined up.

He didn’t say anything else, so she herded him out of her apartment, telling him to text her the next time he felt like it. It was so quick, she didn’t think to hand him back the red hoodie on the floor of her bedroom.

-

For a month, he didn’t text her. There were no inopportune instances of running into each other again.

At night, sometimes, after she had a particularly stressful day, and her mind was too full of what she needed to do the next to sleep, she would think about him. The feeling of his cock in her, how full she felt when he fucked her into the mattress. She never washed her sheets or texted him to get his hoodie back. On those nights, she slept with it in her arms, her face buried in the neckline.

It was a reconciliation prize. She pushed him away, and he decided to stay away. It was what she wanted, and it was what she deserved for her poor treatment of him, but still. She thought it would have taken longer for him to tire of her.

Mikasa probably needed some friends. Real friends, the type that she could see outside of class and who would listen to her rant about boy problems. She was friends with Sasha, but the two didn’t really have much in common. Sasha was more sexually attracted to a sandwich than any man.

Jean still wasn’t speaking to her, but he wasn’t really an option to vent to anyway. In the worst case scenario, she could call her mom, but it wasn’t in Mikasa’s nature to let her parents worry about her. She could take care of herself.

Nothing had changed, not really. The lack of companionship had never bothered her before. But it was like he had come into her space, stretched it to the size of him, and disappeared. Living there that month was loneliest she ever felt.

She was steadfast in her decision not to contact him. It was the kind of person she wanted to be, someone who knew what was good for themselves and acted in accordance.

Eventually, just as she had told herself she would exorcise any more thoughts of him, he texted.

It was strange to feel relief over something she previously told herself she didn’t want. When she got the text from him, she had to put her phone away so that she didn’t respond too soon, for fear of looking too eager.

When are you free?

Anytime, she wanted to say. But it wasn’t true. Mostly she was free on Friday nights when she was finished with her studying for the week and gave herself time to rest and prepare for the weekend shifts she picked up at the school library to help supplement what the scholarship didn’t cover.

She wished it were different. If only she could have been the type of girl that grew up in the same social circles as Eren, whose family owned a house in his cul-de-sac. Then she wouldn’t need to explain or negotiate her time. Then the distance between them wouldn’t be so insurmountable.

Friday night, she told him.

-

When she saw him again, his demeanor was different. Gone was the boy who brought her up to his mother’s greenhouse and hinted at his hidden loneliness. The person he became smirked at her, showing his canine teeth. He flirted with her relentlessly, commenting on her ass and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before diving in to kiss her with tongue.

There was a sense of loss there, but she didn’t think about it too hard. It was difficult to focus when he was pounding into her, his cockhead raw against the base of her cervix.

She never wanted to use a condom, even though he always brought them. She figured that if he was so concerned, he would push back on her more, but he never did. Having unprotected sex with him was the one bad thing she allowed herself every week. Mikasa ate all her vegetables and slept 8 hours every night. She didn’t smoke weed or do any recreational drugs. She didn’t even take adderall to study like the other students in her major. So at the very least, she felt she deserved this.

The smooth glide of his skin against hers. The connection she felt to him in those moments. The twitch of his dick as it spurted white all over her tummy.

It was satisfying to watch him cum, like getting an A on an exam. It was validation that she was good for something, that even if they weren’t going to work out, she could give him pleasure in the time they did spend together.

-

For two years, that’s how she’s been passing the time. Class, study, homework, exams, sex, work and repeat.

Eren comes over almost every Friday, barring holidays and big events. Mikasa is sure he would be better off elsewhere, but she doesn’t bring it up for fear that it would make him realize he’s wasting his time.

The talking is usually minimal and reserved for the beginning when he’s starting off their foreplay by telling her how good she looks, how fuckable, how badly he wants her. Mikasa thinks it’s fine, though she doesn’t really need it. She knows that she can’t possibly look good with how little effort she puts into her appearance, how early she wakes most days. Anyway, after spending the entire week in anticipation, she just wants to get to the part where he’s fucking her so hard she can’t access her frontal cortex anymore.

Lately, Eren’s started getting a faraway look in his eye before they do it. He kisses her with a tenderness acutely distinct from how roughly he handles her, gripping her hips and arms until she wonders whether she’ll bruise.

She wants to ask him what’s going on, but all she can get out are comments like, “Your hair’s longer,” and “You seem tired lately.”

He looks at her strangely when she talks to him because they both know she’s violating the terms of their unwritten contract, but he obliges her.

“I’m growing it out,” he says, and “Yeah, med school applications have been stressful.”

They’re starting their last year of uni now, and Mikasa is aware that all of this is coming to an end. On some level, she’s glad for it. She secured a couple of internships over the summer that seemed promising, and the thought of finally being released from the constrictive binds of her scholarship sounds like a sort of fantasy she can’t totally comprehend.

Still though, something about this being her last year bothers her, though she’s never been a particularly sentimental person.

She wonders briefly how many Fridays are left in this school year as Eren tweaks one of her nipples, rolling the other on his tongue. His cockhead bumps against her clit, and she wonders what medical school he’ll end up at. She wonders what he does in the time when they’re not together, whether he would tell her if she asked.

It’s too late for that though. If she wanted to know about his personal life, she should have asked him at any of the given opportunities she had during their time in college, but she didn’t. She chose this bed for them, and now she gets to lay in it.

He pushes his middle and ring finger into her but she’s so wet already that there’s no resistance.

“Fuck. Jesus, Eren. Just put it in,” she whines, throwing her head against the pillow in frustration because she knows he won’t give it to her just because she begs for it.

“You want it?” he pants against her pubis, kissing her hip, the inside of her thighs, her labia, everywhere but her clit. One of his arms forces her legs open, despite how badly she wants to just clamp around his head and press herself onto his face.

“Yes, I want it. So just put it in already or I—“ She lets out an errant sniffle-hiccup. She clamps her hands over her mouth in shock.

“Mikasa?” Eren’s head pops up from between her legs, his voice full of concern.

She tries to swallow whatever strange feeling is choking her, but it doesn’t help. A warm tear slips down her cheek. Her chest tries to spasm again, but she suppresses it, taking in a shaky breath in through her nose.

Eren pulls off of her, which is the last thing she wants, and now she’s actually getting upset. She tries to shake her head, but that just allows more tears to leak out of her.

He moves up the bed until his face is directly over hers, supporting himself on his shins, his forearms bracketing her head.

“Hey,” he says so gently that it reminds her of the first night they met. “What’s wrong?”

“No—“ nothing, she wants to say, but she can’t get it out. More tears, despair seizing her lungs.

She hasn’t cried in years. She can’t even remember the last time she did. It must’ve been when she was still a child.

“‘No?’ Do you want me to leave?” He wipes at the tears soaking the hair at her temples, his hands finding their way on either side of her face, cradling it.

“I—“ she gulps, forcing herself to take a deep breath. Multiple deep breaths actually, until she feels ready to form words. Eren just watches her patiently the entire time. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispers, finally, shaking her head in disbelief.

One time Eren edged her on for nearly two hours, to the point where she was on the verge of tears, but even then, she hadn’t cried.

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m not upset. We don’t have to do anything.” Eren pushes himself onto his hands, about to roll off of her when she grabs at his forearm.

“Don’t leave,” she says, her voice laced with a desperation that makes her hate herself. It’s the most honest she’s ever been, with him or anyone.

One of his hands is still holding her face, the other is bracing the bed next to her waist where she’s gripping him. He looks at her for a long time with an expression she can’t read.

“I won’t. I’m right here.”

She breathes in a few more breaths, trying to calm herself. Eren shifts his weight around again, but he doesn’t move from above her. She allows herself to stare back at him. She usually tries not to look at him too much when they have sex because if she did, she’d get overwhelmed by how handsome he is.

If she gave herself more time to think about it, she’d have to admit that she’s lucky Eren lets her yank him around like this, fucking her on her schedule and never asking for more. But she’d really rather not think about it.

Only when she’s sure that he won’t leave, Mikasa wipes at the tears on her face.

When she’s ready, she reaches down between them and wraps her palm around Eren’s half-softened dick. He intakes a harsh breath.

“Mikasa…” he says, hesitantly, as if he might tell her no.

“Can we still do it? I—I really want it.” In a rare act of affection, Mikasa kisses his chin, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

He seems conflicted for a moment, but with her hand stroking up and down his shaft, her thumb over his slit as she moves, it takes no time for her to get him hard again.

“Fuck. That’s not fair, Mikasa.” he grunts, his eyes falling closed. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Just don’t tease me anymore, okay?”

Eren nods. “Okay, ah—okay.”

He slips into her, all the way to the hilt, and she cries out in relief.

He kisses her, stroking the inside of her mouth with his tongue, like he wants to be inside of her in every way he can. He pumps into her with an erratic rhythm, slow and hard at times, and then a few in quick succession. The pleasure of him numbs her to whatever she was upset about earlier.

His hands are on her hips, her waist, then beneath her knee to lift her into a tilt that makes her want to cry again. She hates how easily he does it, that he knows exactly the angle she needs.

He fucks her through her first orgasm, only pausing as she convulses beneath him, and doesn’t stop until she’s had a second, a third.

“Please cum, Eren,” she begs. “I can’t take anymore.”

He grunts, burrowing his face into the crook of her neck. He picks up his pace, slamming into her so hard that she feels the force reverberate into her spine. She wraps her arms around his neck, holding onto him for comfort despite that he’s the one who’s making her need it.

“Mikasa. You feel so fucking good,” he pants, his hot breath condensing against her neck. “You don’t know what you do to me.”

She feels it, his abdomen clenching, and then for the first time, a spurt against her walls.

“Shit,” Eren moans before pulling out, his cock slapping onto the skin of her tummy. White pooling into her belly button. “Shit, shit. I just came inside you.”

Eren looks down at his own cock in a mixture of horror and panic.

His spend is dribbling down the side of her, leaking from between her legs. More than anything, it feels good and right. The knowledge that it’s Eren coating her.

She isn’t looking at him. She can’t stop staring at how much there is, can’t stop wishing it was all inside her.

Eren must take this the wrong way because when she does look back up at his face, it’s full of more panic and anguish. “I’m so—I’m so sorry, Mikasa. I don’t know what happened to me. It was just—“ He shakes his head, grimacing. “I’ll get you cleaned up. And then I’ll…”

She doesn’t really hear him after he gets off her, heading to her bathroom to grab the towel she reserves for these moments.

They’ve been having sex for two years now, and he’s never slipped up before. Always so careful with it. She never thought to go through the hassle of getting on birth control.

When he comes back, he wipes her gently, first between her legs and then scooping up the mound of it. He checks to make sure she’s dry before throwing the towel into her hamper.

He doesn’t say anything else, just picks up his pants and shoves his legs inside. He’s flinging her covers around, looking for his shirt when Mikasa interrupts him.

“Where are you going?”

He freezes for a moment, unable to look at her. “I’m gonna…” he pauses, finding his shirt on the floor and pulling it over his head. “I was gonna head to the store and get you Plan B. Is that—I mean, that’s what you want right?”

No, not really, Mikasa thinks. What she wants is for him to get back in bed, to hold her like he usually does afterward. He must have conditioned her to expect it, and that’s why she feels so bereft without.

She nods. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

-

There is one singular thing that’s changed since she first started college, but it was without her consent.

Historia smiles at her as Mikasa walks into their shared internship office space. It would be nice if interns all had their own desks, but it’s mostly just a big conference room that all the college students share. It makes it difficult to avoid other people, which Mikasa had become adept at doing otherwise.

“Good morning, Miki,” Historia greets in a tone way too chipper for a Saturday morning.

“Morning,” Mikasa mumbles, still trying to get her eyes open fully. Eren hadn’t left her alone all night after he came back with the pill. And he was clingier than usual in the morning, touching her awake with a hand between her legs rather than leaving as soon as the sun broke.

She’s unpacking her stuff from her bag when Historia’s blonde head appears like a fluffy dandelion in her periphery.

“I missed you! How were you this week?”

Mikasa looks up, and the other girl is standing right at the side of her chair, her abdomen centimeters away from Mikasa’s face, tilting her head at Mikasa in curiosity.

On the best of days, Historia is sweet and tolerable. Today, Mikasa doesn’t know how long she’ll last in this room, being forced to keep Historia company for a full six hours.

For some ridiculous reason, Historia is pretending to intern at this electronics company that her family owns. She said she’s doing it for the same reason she’s going to college, ‘To get the full experience of youth’ or whatever.

Historia is majoring in marketing and design, so Mikasa doesn’t know what Historia does when she’s not there because mostly, Historia seems to like watching Mikasa work and asking a thousand questions that couldn’t possibly benefit her in any way.

They’ve been co-interning for over a year now, and once every so often, Historia wears down Mikasa’s roughened exterior enough that they go together for lunch.

“I’m not really feeling well right now. I think I just need to focus on work today,” Mikasa responds, and it’s true. She’s nauseous, and it feels like there’s someone hacking away at her insides with an axe.

Historia pouts. “Oh, no. Is there anything I can get for you?”

Mikasa shakes her head. Please just shut up today, she wants to say. Instead, she keeps her head down and stares at the code she’s supposed to be debugging on her laptop screen. Thankfully, Historia can take a hint.

At lunchtime, Mikasa’s phone buzzes.

How are you?

It’s from Eren.

At the same time, Historia asks, “Miki, do you wanna get lunch today?”

Generally, Mikasa’s answer would be no. But she figures she needs the distraction right now. Plus, Historia always buys.

-

Down the street from the office building is a place that serves curry rice. Mikasa mistakenly told Historia that her favorite food was Hizurian curry once, and the other girl has never forgotten it.

It’s just hard to turn down. Mikasa would rather work through lunch and finish up early instead of socializing, but Historia has somehow burrowed her way into all of Mikasa’s unarmored layers and now refuses to leave.

She should be grateful since this weekly acquaintanceship is Mikasa’s only real source of human connection. Eventually, as most freshman year friendships do, Jean and Sasha faded into their respective paths, and Mikasa honestly couldn’t say what they were doing now.

Mikasa sits in the chair because Historia likes the booth, and they order right away because they both already know what they want. The food comes out quickly and without fanfare.

“Miki, what do you think you’ll do after graduation?” Historia asks, eyes big and shiny. She stabs her spoon into the chicken cutlet on her plate, sectioning it in what Mikasa can only imagine to be the most violent way possible to eat.

“Um…” Truthfully, Mikasa had hoped Reiss Industries would extend an offer to her. She likes the technical work she did for them, and it seems like the one place that wasn’t intent on abusing their low level staff. Outright asking their heir for a job seems a bit gauche though. “I don’t know yet. I just hope to get a job offer, honestly.”

Historia laughs, loudly and unrestrained. “Oh, of course you’ll get job offers. I meant like, what do you want to do? Would you want to stay here in Mitras? Or move elsewhere?”

Mikasa thinks for a few seconds under the guise of chewing a big mouthful. She had never really considered what she wanted for herself. She only ever considers what might be possible. It’s been a realistic way to live and the least likely to result in devastation.

She swallows, shrugging. “I’ll go anywhere but home.”

Home is where her parents are, small-minded and closed off in the mountains of Shiganshina. If she was ever forced to go back, it would only be because of a massive failure on her part. The type she had been staving off at all costs the past three years.

Historia hums, obviously unsatisfied with her answer but willing to move past it. “And do you see yourself with anyone? You know, after?”

Mikasa quirks a brow over the straw to her water cup. She’s never mentioned seeing anyone before.

“I haven’t really thought about it, honestly,” she answers, uncommittedly. “I’m not really dating right now, so—“

“Oh, cut the bullcrap, Miki. What about Eren?” Historia quirks her own brow back.

Mikasa sighs. She should have figured that Historia was keeping tabs on her for Eren, but as far as self delusions go, she had allowed herself to entertain the possibility of their friendship. It made her feel better about the whole loner thing she was doing to herself.

“What about Eren? He’s going to medical school after this.”

“There’s a medical school here. And one in Shiganshina. It’s his dad’s alma mater actually. Or if you wanted to go somewhere crazy, there’s a medical school in Marley, too, the one his brother is doing a residency at. They would take him.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do with that information.”

Historia rolls her eyes so hard, Mikasa’s surprised they don’t detach from the sockets.

“He wants to know where you’ll end up. So that he can go there too,” Historia says, slowly, enunciating each word as if she were speaking to a very small child or a person who just recently learned the language.

“What exactly do you think is going on between me and Eren?” Mikasa takes another big bite of her food, letting the salt and the vinegar and all the curry spices coat her tongue. The taste is so vibrant, it distracts her from the rumbling in her stomach.

“I know he goes to see you every Friday.”

“Did he tell you that? Or did you follow him to my apartment? Peep at us through the window too?” A tension sticks itself at the bottom of her gut, thick and viscous. How much has Eren relayed about their non-existent relationship?

Historia clicks her tongue. “Neither. He’s never mentioned you to me before. He doesn’t even know that we’re friends, and he’d probably throw a fit if he ever found out.”

Mikasa bites the inside of her cheek.

“I saw you that day. In the library. I know you remember. Eren made a big scene running after you. And then, every Friday since then, he’s always busy with something that he refuses to elaborate on.” Historia says it like she’s uncovered a mystery, like she’s wearing an imaginary monocle and deerstalker hat.

“Fine. He does see me on Fridays. But we’re… casual. Less than that. Eren sees other girls,” Mikasa explains.

Historia scoffs. “Okay, well, maybe it’s casual to you. But Eren doesn’t see any other girls. I would know if he did.”

Mikasa shakes her head. What could she possibly say to get her to understand?

“We’re fuck buddies, Historia. I can’t even call us friends with benefits because that would imply that we’ve formed some sort of friendship, which we haven’t. I promise you that whatever you think is going on between me and Eren is entirely in your imagination.”

Historia purses her lips and crosses her arms over her chest, staring Mikasa up and down like she’s the one who’s dense. “Lie to yourself if you want. But at least tell him what your plans are. He’s driving all of us crazy.”

-

Mikasa feels seriously unwell. After lunch, she throws up in the staff bathroom and gets sent home for the day.

Alone in her apartment, she has an extra three hours to herself that she wouldn’t normally have. It would be nice if she could get started on some of her assignments for the upcoming week, but the nausea makes her dizzy and doesn’t allow her to get up out of bed for more than a few steps at a time.

She oscillates between staring at her phone and staring at the ceiling. Watching too many videos gives her a headache, but without the stimulation, she gets so bored that it feels like every individual muscle fiber in her body wants to burst out of her skin.

So instead of choosing either option, she tortures herself by staring at Eren’s text.

She hasn’t responded yet. When she scrolls through the message history between them, it’s just a long row of Eren letting her know that he’ll be over on Fridays. Her texts to him are short and sparse.

She’s just not good at texting. She doesn’t text anyone, really. Her parents prefer a once monthly phone call, and there’s no one else she needs to keep up with. Plus, being good at texting is a skillset that requires much more than just sending messages.

It requires social intelligence and a willingness to converse. It requires time management and attention to detail. It requires a sort of courage that Mikasa has decided she’ll need eventually, just not now. Not yet.

But she really has nothing better to do, and she figures it’s for the best not to keep Eren wondering about her. It would be cruel of her after the regret in his eyes that morning.

For several minutes, she considers telling him the truth. A fantasy world unravels inside of her, and she imagines what it would feel like if he came over right now, if he brought her water and snacks, smoothed her matted hair off her face and patted her back.

It’s the type of daydream that she could only think up when she’s this sick and this alone.

She finds the red hoodie on the floor of her closet and puts it on. It just happens to be the most comfortable article clothing she’s in possession of, and it’s starting to get chilly this time of year.

She texts back, “I’m fine, thanks for checking in” and allows her mind to carry her to sleep.

-

She is fine for a few days, but then suddenly she’s not. The next three weeks after that are a haze of misery and fatigue. The label on the box said the side effects should only last up to 48 hours, but it’s been longer than that.

Mikasa has always had a strong immune system. She could count on one hand the number of times she’s been sick throughout her life, and usually, she’s fully recovered in just a few days.

But this time, no number of chicken soup bowls from the apartment restaurant or vitamin C boost packets from the convenience store across the street seems to make it better.

It’s an accumulation of stress, most likely. It was bound to happen eventually with how much she’s always asking from her body. The sleepless nights, the shitty microwaveable dinners, the nonstop studying and work without any reprieve. Her body is forcing her to slow down, and for two weeks, she lets Eren know that she isn’t available.

Another Friday morning rolls around again though, and as she drags herself through two morning classes, she wonders whether she should cancel on him a third time.

It feels strange not to see him for so long. She doesn’t really feel like sex today, but if he was in front of her in her apartment, kissing her like he normally does with his hands on her, it might change her mind. Whatever she has doesn’t seem contagious, or if it was, it should have stopped being so by now.

So at the end of her second class, she texts him, Are you coming over today?

The reply is near-instantaneous, Yes.

-

His mouth is on hers the moment his feet step past the threshold of her home. It’s just past four in the afternoon, and he must have come straight here from his last class.

His kiss is wet and desperate, his hands wrap around her hips and pull her into his body. It’s like he can’t help himself from grabbing her ass and holding her there, afraid she might push him off.

Just a few seconds later and the space between her thighs feels warm and damp, and she’s pawing at the crotch of his jeans, her palm against his already-hard cock through the fabric.

He pulls off her mouth and starts attacking her neck and her shoulder instead. “Mikasa,” he breathes a sigh of relief against her collarbone. “I can’t wait to fuck you.”

Mikasa hums in agreement, her body turning molten with compliance.

“I’m glad to see you, too, Eren.” Her voice is wispy and pitched, and it makes him chuckle. Their short time apart seemed to make him more fond of her—or maybe the other way around.

He lifts her up with firm hands beneath her ass, and she wraps her limbs around his neck and his hips. He walks them into her room, the entire time with their mouths suctioned together.

He deposits her onto the bed, twisting to the side so that he’s still standing but is bent over her with his arms on either side of her head. “What have you been doing the last two weeks?” he asks.

She thinks for a second, deciding whether she should lie to him. She doesn’t want to worry him more than he already was, but she doesn’t have a good excuse, either. At least, not one she can come up with in the next ten seconds that sounds believable.

She snakes her arms around his neck. “Honestly, I was just feeling kind of sick the past couple of weeks. I’m fine now though, I think.”

Eren’s breath catches. “You should have told me. I would have—“

“You would have what, Eren?”

“I would have helped you.” His brows are furrowed and his voice is full of conviction. But sometimes people can be sincere without telling the truth.

“Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself,” she says, smiling, appeasing. She kisses him, pulling him in closer, and he falls onto one of his forearms.

He pulls away from their deep kiss to peck her lips a few times before parting from her completely.

“I know,” he says, holding her cheek in one of his hands. “But I can handle you, too.”

He leans back onto his feet. He unbuttons his pants and pulls off his shirt. And then he’s in bed with her, yanking off her clothes and mouthing any new patch of skin he can reveal.

After he’s properly eaten her out, he pulls out a packet of condoms from his wallet and doesn’t take no for an answer.

-

The next morning, Mikasa wakes before Eren. It’s five in the morning, the sun isn’t even out yet, and she’s throwing up into the toilet underneath shitty yellow incandescent lights.

He comes in, rubbing the crust from his eyes, and holds her hair back from her face. Once Mikasa’s stomach is empty, and she’s just dry-heaving bits of yellow bile, Eren gets up to get her a glass of water from the kitchen.

She washes her mouth and her face in the bathroom sink. When Eren comes back in, she leans against the counter, drying herself off with a hand towel. An apology heavy is on her tongue about how she’s fine, how sorry she is that she woke him.

He doesn’t let her get that far. Before she can get out a word, he asks her the question she’s been subconsciously refusing to acknowledge for weeks.

“Mikasa, when was your last period?”

Her mind is an empty, vast land of nothing. For a moment, it feels like she’s been shocked awake for the first time. She becomes suddenly and acutely aware of herself, half dressed in her bathroom, her hair still a tangled nest, staring at Eren standing in the doorway with a glass clutched in his hand.

His face is a perfect, neutral mask.

For ten seconds, no synapses fire in her brain. Then, even after they do, she realizes she can’t give him an answer. She doesn’t remember.

Was it sometime last month? She’d gotten bad at tracking it lately because of how distracted she was.

She shakes her head, trying to physically eject herself from her train of thoughts.

“Eren, that’s ridiculous. I took the pill last time we were together. I haven’t…” she chews on her bottom lip, bracing herself for an instance of vulnerability. “I haven’t been with anyone other than you.”

Not since they started seeing each other. She barely had time for him as it was. There was never a point in trying to find a second or third candidate to fuck.

“I haven’t either, Mikasa,” he says gently, looking into her eyes with such intensity that she finds it hard to break contact. What he just said doesn’t matter though. He could have been with a hundred girls, and it wouldn’t change a thing about this. “The pill doesn’t always work. There’s still a 5% chance even if you take it as directed. And it’s possible…”

He trails off, looking down at the tiles between them.

“It’s possible that what?” she asks, trying to keep her voice level.

“You could have been pregnant even before then. It’s not like we’re exactly cautious about it.”

Mikasa flinches at the word. She hadn’t even let herself think it before now.

“Eren, that’s…” She shakes her head again. “Ridiculous. I can’t be…” she sighs, unable to say it out loud.

She looks down at herself. Her stomach is flat as ever, but she notices right then how her chest feels. Engorged and sensitive. Like right before she’s about to start her period, except that it should have started that weekend after she took the pill, but it never did.

Something happens to her, like a bone fracturing but in her soul. She has to grip the edge of the vanity so that she doesn’t fall over.

“I can get you a test,” he offers, like that somehow makes it better. “I think the convenience store is open right now. I’ll be back in like ten minutes.”

-

There are two red lines.

The information is impossible to process. She’s sitting on her couch, staring at the stick with her dried piss on it, and Eren is kneeling in front of her, saying something she can’t hear over the sloshing in her ears.

Eventually he gives up, standing and walking over to her kitchen area. He pulls out his phone and calls someone.

She should probably be skeptical, should probably ask for another test, or go to the doctor to triple confirm. But the reality is that she can tell this is just the truth being discovered. She’s been in denial about it for the past three weeks, and the shroud is now lifting.

Mikasa thinks about how it feels to be impregnated, but it doesn’t really feel like anything at all. She had always assumed that pregnant girls were somehow different from regular girls. She thought they had to be more feminine, as a result of being more fertile. She thought only the girls who deserved to be mothers could get pregnant.

Girls like her, devoid of emotion and lacking in so many of those qualities which would make for a proper mother, weren’t supposed to get pregnant.

She realizes the thinking is flawed now, sitting and staring at the result of her actions. But it was this assumption of the world through which she moved. Having unprotected sex with Eren all this time seemed like a controlled risk for that reason.

What did she or didn’t she deserve was the basis through which she made all of her decisions. It had served to be true thus far in life. For it to be right about everything else, but wrong in this seems cruel.

“Mikasa, hello?” Eren’s voice finally pierces through to her. “Are you listening?”

“Hm?” She turns to look at him. He’s standing at the kitchen island with his arms crossed. “Sorry, I didn’t get any of that.”

“I just called Historia. She said you can miss your internship today,” he explains.

Another part of her brain short circuits. “How did you…?” She can’t even finish the sentence. She supposes it really doesn’t matter.

“You told me where you were interning last year. Offhandedly. You said you’d be late getting to the Reiss building one morning.”

The way he looks at her explains everything else: I’m not stupid, you know.

“So you knew this whole time that I was interning with Historia?”

“I knew she was pretending to intern there, yes. And I knew how curious she was about you. She would have never been able to stay away. But I don’t talk to her about you, in case you’re worried about that.”

Eren taps his fingers against his bicep, just waiting for her to react. Except, there’s just nothing left in her to do so. She feels completely worn out already, and it’s only seven in the morning.

“So what about you? Don’t you have somewhere to be today?”

Eren’s brows furrow, his mouth twisting into a frown. “Nowhere that’s more important than here.”

Mikasa looks around at her apartment. It’s messier than usual lately, with how exhausted she’s been. There are papers strewn everywhere, piles of takeout smashed into an overfilled trash can, a few empty cups laying around different surfaces. She’s embarrassed by it all. Almost as embarrassed as she is that Eren watched her wretch into the toilet at 5am and then stood outside the door listening to her stream of pee fall into the water.

“Look, Eren.” Mikasa sighs, trying to find the right words. “This isn’t your fault or your problem. I convinced you not to use protection, so you don’t need to—“

“Are you seriously saying that right now? That this has nothing to do with me?” Eren scoffs, his face curling into something like hurt, or maybe just derision. “I got you pregnant. What happened to you to make you think like that?”

Mikasa turns away from him. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. Never has. She has loving, if slightly simple-minded parents. She doesn’t have any big traumas to explain herself. It’s likely she was just born like this.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry I’m not….” what you wanted, she thinks, but she just lets her sentence trail off. She means it. She is sorry. This was why she never wanted anything serious between them. Inevitably, he would be disappointed by who she actually was.

“Mikasa. That’s not what I meant.” Eren drags a hand down his face in frustration. He takes a deep breath before continuing, “I’m with you whatever you decide. That’s all.”

Mikasa can’t help but laugh at that, a bit cruelly, her mouth pressing up in the corners. “Really? What if I decided to keep it? Are you ready to be a father?”

“Yes,” he says, without hesitation. For a minute, they engage in a staring contest, both of them too stubborn to look away.

Mikasa has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it, Eren. You’re going to medical school next year. How are you going to care for a baby?”

“If it was with you—“

“Don’t say that. You don’t know me.”

“But I want to. I’ve wanted…” He sighs, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter what I want. What do you want? Do you want to have a baby?”

No, of course not. The words are right there for her to say, but she can’t. She can’t say anything. There’s a lump in her throat, and it’s full of every emotion she’s ever swallowed.

She opens her mouth to respond, but all that comes out of her is a wet breath. And then tears are rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh my god,” she says, smearing the back of her hand across her skin. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“Mikasa,” Eren says, so tenderly that it makes her chest want to cave in on itself. He comes to sit next to her on the couch, and she can feel the heat of him on her side. His fingers twitch on his thigh, and she reaches out to him. He grasps her hand immediately, holding it to his chest.

It is a comfort, his presence. It would have been easier for her to send him away, but it feels better with him here.

“You don’t have to decide anything right now.”

She nods, allowing herself to feel her hand in his. His palm is so large that it envelops nearly the entire length of her fingers. She feels rough callouses on his inner knuckles, the type you get from working out or playing sports. She doesn’t know what he got them from, but she almost wishes she did.

“You can go back to bed if you’re tired,” he speaks low and into her ear. “Or if you want…”

“Hm?” She turns toward him again, their noses just centimeters from one another. Does he want to fuck her right now? She supposes that she can’t get pregnant a second time.

“I could take you out to breakfast. Since you have the day off.” His voice is hopeful that it drips off every word.

She doesn’t know what spurns her to agree. Maybe it’s that she doesn’t want to let him down, or maybe she’s just so pumped full of pregnancy hormones that it makes her want to cry all the time and spend time with the person who got her pregnant.

Either way, it’s worth it for the way happiness spreads across his face like a fan, his smile opening up big and wide.

-

He takes her to one of those coffee shops that’s decorated in the way of Hizurian culture, with tall, spotless windows and white sunlight all over lightwood furniture.

On the bus the way over, he stood so close to her that she leaned against the side wall next to the door, feeling small and shielded.

Her first thought as she walks into the building is that it’s easier for her to breathe here. It’s still early enough that there isn’t a crowd yet, and when she orders at the counter, Eren pays for her. He gets her a breakfast croissant, too, and asks them to heat it up.

She wonders, briefly, when the server comes out to set their drinks down whether caffeine is bad for a developing fetus.

Then she tells herself it doesn’t matter anyway.

“How many hours do I have?” Eren asks, staring down at his steaming mug, his fingers toying with the handle.

“Hm?” Mikasa pours the pot of hot water into her teacup.

“Twelve? Eight? Hopefully it’s more than six.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How many hours do I have to change your mind about me?” His expression is severe, and there is a hard tension in the muscles of his neck.

She smiles, somewhere between wry and amused. “Is that why you asked me to get breakfast with you?”

“I’m assuming I get one chance. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?”

“I just feel like you’ll disappear.”

She chuckles, taking her first sip. She ordered an herbal tea. Just to soothe her stomach. “Shouldn’t I be the one saying that? Usually, isn’t it the guy who runs away after he gets someone pregnant?”

“Now’s not the time for jokes.” Eren’s lower lip juts out, like he planned to frown but it looks more like a pout instead.

“You know where I live. And where I work. Where would I hide?” she tries to reason with him.

“Answer me. How long do I have?”

“To live? I mean, if all goes well, hopefully another sixty years.”

“Mikasa,” his voice slants into something similar to a whine. “Can you be serious?”

She takes another sip of her tea, considering his question for the first time. She watches as more people start lining up at the counter, the space growing louder and busier with each additional body. It must be nice to be at a coffee shop on a Saturday morning for some reason other than calling out of work because you accidentally got knocked up.

It doesn’t matter how many hours he gets. There’s nothing Eren could do today that would change her mind. It’s not so much about him as it is about their entire lives and who they are as people. No matter what happens today, tomorrow, her life goes back to normal. She’ll still be Mikasa.

“You can take me around for as long as you want,” she says, indulging him. She sees him perk up. “That is, until I get tired and need to get to bed. We didn’t really sleep much last night.”

He smiles again, finally, and it’s like the clouds clear. “I can make that work. Can you do one more thing for me though, just for today?”

“Sure.”

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

-

Eren explains to her that he wants her to pretend. Imagine, if they had been dating this whole time, and today was just another day for them.

Not to discount her work, he says, but in this other universe where they were already dating, she wouldn’t really need to intern at Reiss Industries. Historia’s family would be offering her a job either way. So they would have Saturdays together, and maybe in the mornings, they would spend a couple of hours studying at the library or in a coffee shop.

For the sake of time, they’ll be skipping the actual studying today. But imagine, they wake up in her apartment. It’s morning, and they bring all their school work here. Whatever work she has to do, she does so leisurely.

Mikasa has never been good at playing make-believe, not even when she was a kid. Adults always told her she was “very mature for her age” because of it. But Eren just seems so eager, and she did already agree.

So she tries. It would be much easier if she had more time for studying on Saturdays, rather than going into work. Luckily, she already finished up all her assignments for the upcoming week before Eren got to her apartment yesterday,

Would Eren be disruptive as a study date? Would she even be able to focus on her work if he were around?

“If you weren’t with me today, what would you be doing?” she asks.

Eren shrugs. “Usually I go to the gym from your place. But that’s what single Eren would do, not relationship Eren.”

Mikasa smiles, the urge to laugh rising like helium at the back of her throat. “Okay, so what are we doing after this, relationship Eren?”

“Well, I should probably go home and get changed. All I had with me were my gym clothes, so I’ve been wearing the same outfit for like 24 hours now.”

-

Mikasa lays on top of his bed, over the covers, with her legs dangling off the side. Eren is in his walk-in closet, deciding what outfit to change into.

This morning when she left, she hadn’t considered what she should wear. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might be going on a multi-hour long date. She’s wearing a pair of flared jeans, a long sleeve, and just her usual beater clogs. She doesn’t have much in the way of dressy clothes, anyway, but she could have tried harder.

She had considered going in sweats and the red hoodie, so this at least is a step up from that.

Eren’s room is so big. It’s the size of her whole apartment. She didn’t get a chance to see it the last time she was here. Instead, images of the greenhouse, his parents’ room, her naked on top of him flash through her mind. The house is different without a crowd of people. More refined and intimidating.

When Eren steps back out, he’s wearing an outfit almost identical to hers. Jeans, white long sleeved shirt, black shoes.

He seems almost embarrassed to look at her, like he doesn’t want her to know he chose this outfit on purpose.

“This is kind of corny, Eren,” she says, pushing up onto her forearms. She can’t help the fact that she’s smiling.

He mumbles something, one of his hands scratching at the back of his neck.

“What was that?”

“I said, if we were a couple, this is what we would wear!” he exclaims, in the way that little kids do before they know how to control the volume of their own voice.

It’s cute, seeing Eren flustered. He’s usually so domineering with her in bed that she forgets he might still just be a boy.

“Okay, got it. In character and in-costume,” she teases. She gets up from the bed, stepping toward him.

His cheeks and nose are dusted in pink. He glances down at her and then away again.

She steps closer to him, raising her hands to rest them on his shoulders.

He inhales sharply, his arms are spread out like he isn’t sure if he’s supposed to be touching her. “What are you doing?”

“Getting in character,” she says, rising to her tiptoes and nudging his nose with her own so that he’s forced to look into her eyes. “If we were a couple, I would get to do this…”

She presses her lips to his.

-

Eren kisses her in a cautious way, like he’s afraid of pressing into her too hard and making her pop.

He has always smelled fresh and citrusy, even more so now that the clothes he wears are newly laundered. Being with him in this way is like stepping into a bathhouse, total vulnerability in exchange for a cleansing heat.

She shouldn’t be allowing herself this, this sweet moment between them. It feels dangerous to touch him with an objective other than sex. Misleading, even.

But he said so himself, they’re pretending right now. For a day, she thinks, she can indulge. Like a treat after a long study session, so that she can keep going the next.

His mouth sliding against hers is soft and warm, grazing her bottom lip against his tongue and teeth. He cradles her face in his hands, like he usually likes to do, but this time feels different. It feels like he is trying to coax something out of her that doesn’t exist, but for a moment, she wishes it did.

She breaks apart from him, leaning her forehead on his shoulder. They’re both panting a little, and she can feel the rise and fall of his chest.

There is something between them, that much is undeniable. It’s just that a part of her is telling her to run, to hide, like all of this has been done before, and it didn’t turn out well. It’s hard to listen though, not when he leans against her ear and whispers, “You are so perfect.”

She doesn’t have a funny, defensive one-liner to throw back at him. Her heart beats in her ears, and it’s all she can do to untangle herself from him and clear her throat.

“So, where to next?”

-

“There’s an autumn festival happening this weekend,” he tells her, after she’s buckled into the passenger seat of his car. “It’s kind of on the outskirts of the city, so like a half-hour away.”

“How did you hear about it?” she asks. Her danger card flies in the back of her mind as he starts pulling out of his driveway. She hadn’t heard of any festival happening this weekend, but then, she’s never sought out the sort of thing.

“Uh—“ He turns onto the street, feigning distraction, but he seems a bit guilty. “…Someone asked me to go with them to it yesterday, but I was busy.”

“You’re saying a girl asked you on a date? And you rejected her? And now you’re stealing her idea to take me on a date?”

They get to a stop light, and he brakes harder than absolutely necessary. He looks over at her, his thumb digging into the wheel, and he at least has the decency to seem bashful. “I never would have gone with her in the first place.”

Mikasa plays with a loose thread on her sleeve, suddenly feeling guilt heavy in the pit of her stomach. “In another world, if you didn’t see me every Friday, would you have gone with her?”

“I don’t know,” he says, barely louder than the blow of the air conditioning. “I just want to focus on one pretend world at a time. This is the one where I get to be with you.”

-

They get to a dirt lot where he parks the car, and as they walk towards the gate, she notices all the couples and families.

Eren buys them tickets to get inside, and immediately she’s hit with the smell of fried sweets, the sound of screaming and the laughter of children running around with wobbly ice cream cones, all around them are groups of teenagers taking photos together.

There are food and game and shopping stalls all lined up in multiple rows, leading to a field full of amusement park rides that shoot up high in the sky and seem less than regulation.

It’s just past noon, and the sun is warm on her skin. It’s the type of day that might make you forget it’s supposed to be autumn. There are a few errant clouds and a light breeze, but she can imagine herself starting to sweat if she were stuck in a crowd.

It’s overwhelming, this congestion of joy. Her immediate bodily response is to move closer to Eren. She catches herself reaching for him, trying to get a hold of him, before she can stop herself.

He notices her hesitation and places a hand on her midback. “Don’t get lost,” he says and leads them down the middle pathway.

-

Eren is interested in everything. The fried pickles, the fake fishing competition, the stands full of ceramic trinkets with outrageous price tags.

He challenges her to every prize-winning game there is, even after she gets the hang of them and starts beating him. First she wins a couple of small prizes, and then the attendant tells her that she can trade those in for a big prize.

There are rows and rows full of huge stuffed animals, and Mikasa asks Eren which one he thinks she should get.

He points to a blue plush that’s totally ovoid, and if not for the eyes and beak, she would have no idea that it’s supposed to be a penguin. She can’t hold in her glee when it’s placed in her arms, the ultra-soft material brushing her fingertips.

She squishes it against her chest, and Eren surprises her by pressing a kiss to her mouth.

“Sorry, you just looked so cute,” he says once he leans away. A giddy feeling bubbles in her, and she feels her cheeks flush.

Eren uses that moment to intertwine his fingers through hers and pulls her back into the crowd.

-

He drags her into a photo booth, despite her protests about how she’s too awkward to pose.

Eren does most of the work for her, placing the plush between them, and leading her through the poses.

They make silly faces and hold up peace signs. He wraps his arm around her neck, like he’s holding her hostage, and points a finger gun at the camera. In the third photo, he lifts up a hand, like he’s telling her a secret, and whispers to her, “I’m gonna kiss you next, okay?”

The camera shutter sounds, and then the screen is counting down from three again.

“Hey, were you just using this as another excuse to kiss me?” She laughs, feeling stupidly, drunkenly happy.

“Yes,” he says, pulling her in by the back of her neck just before the number ‘1’ disappears.

-

They go on a few of the kiddy rides, and her hesitance about whether the machines pose a risk of bodily injury is overshadowed by Eren asking her whether she’s too much of a pussy to get on the big disc that spins them at an advertised four g-forces.

They get in line, and for a moment, Mikasa is actually excited about the prospect of riding it. But then, the previous cohort of riders gets off, and an announcement chimes stating that “women who are pregnant or may possibly be pregnant should not ride,” and the words jolt down her spine.

Her and Eren glance at each other before he takes her hand again and leads her away from the front of the line. They don’t speak about it directly even as they wander off. For a little while, she had forgotten why they were here in the first place. Forgotten that she was now part of some categorization that made her more fragile than she was before.

Forgotten that this was more than just a fun day, that Eren had some kind of motive.

They decide to ride the Ferris Wheel instead, something low impact but arguably more intense than the spinning disc.

They sit on either side of the tiny gondola, facing one another, their knees touching.

The side windows have gaps running along them for air ventilation, but the space between them is thick with something else.

A loud creek and the feeling of her body swaying back indicates that the ride is starting. They both watch the ground gradually increase in distance from them, and not until they’re about halfway to the top does Eren break the silence.

“Are you hungry?” His expression is some mix between cringe and concern, like he had to force the words out.

“Kind of, but I don’t really feel like eating the festival food.”

He nods, leaning back on his elbows where they’re pressed against the safety railings on either side of them. “There’s a good ramen place on the way back if you’re okay with that. Or…”

The cringe grows on his face.

“Or what?” she asks, feeling the hard bone of his knee against her thigh.

“If you want something specific, I could have someone at the house make it for you. It would really be no problem.”

“Um…” Mikasa looks out the window, watching the crowds from above. She’s more familiar seeing other people this way, she thinks, with a hundred foot vantage. “What would you rather do?”

Truthfully, her stomach still isn’t feeling well. She’d like something light, like a rice porridge, but she feels a bit guilty about how much Eren’s spent on her today, how much time of his she’s used up. It feels like he is investing in something that she already knows won’t have a return.

The way Eren looks at her is scrutinizing, like he can tell she’s keeping something from him. He thinks for a while, until enough time has passed that they’ve gotten to the very apex of the wheel.

He makes eye contact with her as he says, “I want you to pretend like you’ve gotten over worrying about me and what I want. Like over the past two years, you’ve become so comfortable and so used to bossing me around that it doesn’t even occur to you to tell me anything but the truth.”

She nods obediently. Still, it takes Mikasa a level of courage that she didn’t know she previously had to tell him. After she says it, he smiles again, so satisfied with himself that it shows in his eyes.

“I hope you know that is the easiest, smallest request ever,” he says, and it lifts a load off of her. She feels physically lighter, and it’s easier to breathe.

He reaches out for her hand, and she gladly gives it to him, forgetting all about her previous reservations.

“Why are you treating me like this?” she asks, genuinely curious. It doesn’t make sense to her.

“Like how?” He rubs circles into her palm with his thumb.

“You could have any girl. There’s no need to focus all your effort on me. It just…” seems like a waste, she wants to say. She just shrugs instead.

Eren stares down at their hands, spreading her fingers out so that he can see how long they are compared to his. “I don’t know if this will make sense, ‘cause I don’t know if you believe in this sort of thing, but from the moment we met, I just felt like I needed to know you. Or I guess, like I already did. And from then on, it was painful to imagine you not being in my life.

“After you told me that you weren’t looking for anything serious, I…thought that I could just brush it off and move on. But I couldn’t, and I still can’t. I think you’re hilarious, and so smart, and obviously gorgeous. But you’re right, there are other funny, smart, pretty girls out there. It’s just—I mean, I don’t see the point in pursuing any of them when I know that you exist.”

The space between his brows is wrinkled, and his mouth is pressed into a fine line. She wonders what it took for him to say that. Because she thinks, it’s possible, that she does know what he means, except that it’s not something she would ever allow herself to say out loud.

“Eren… What if I’m still not ready for anything serious? What if you can’t change my mind?” she says, because she needs him to understand the risks of pursuing her.

He lets out a deep exhale, still staring at their hands. “I guess I was hoping, now that we’re about to graduate—I mean like, after your scholarship wasn’t an issue anymore… and if I could prove to you that I deserved it, of course, that maybe… you’d be willing to give me a chance.”

“I—“

She’s cut off by the screeching of the gondola against the metal platforms at the bottom of the ride. The door swings open, and there’s a pimply faced teenager there, directing them to leave.

-

She falls asleep on the ride back to his house, clutching the plush in her arms like a throw pillow. She’s woken up by the sound of him opening up her side of the car door, clicking apart her seatbelt.

“Eren?” she says, her throat cloudy with sleep. She moves to right herself against the backrest, scrub the corners of her eyes.

“It’s okay, I got you.”

He reaches under her, bracing her upper back and knees on his arms to lift her into a bridal carry. Mikasa is still too groggy to protest, so she just rests her head on his shoulder and breathes in the air around his neck, still holding onto the penguin.

She hears the doors open for them without his arms moving, and then a pattering of feet on the floor that don’t align with Eren’s cadence. Eventually, after a flight of stairs, she opens her eyes again to see them entering his bedroom. He deposits her on the bed like she’s a napping infant and he’s afraid of waking her and moves to her feet to take off her shoes.

She yawns. “I can do that myself, Eren,” she tells him, but he’s already lifting the clogs off of her, pulling the strap off of her heels.

“Just rest,” he says, “I’ll wake you up when lunch is ready.”

“What time is it?” she asks, but she can feel the weight of fatigue heavy on her limbs and she can barely keep her eyes open.

“Or early dinner, I guess. It’s already almost three.”

She responds with some noncommittal sound, and then she’s out again.

-

By the time her eyes open of their own accord, she’s laying in a dark room, tucked beneath a heavy comforter. She’s so warm and snug that she spends a few minutes getting her bearings, forgetting for a moment where she is and why.

The only light she can make out is a sliver beneath the doorframe. She feels around the bed just to stretch her limbs out, and she realizes she’s been holding onto the stuffed penguin the whole time. She reaches around, out of curiosity, but all she can feel in all directions is the smooth cotton of bedsheets.

She considers going back to sleep, but a restlessness overtakes her, her muscles aching from inactivity. She pushes herself off the mattress and gets to her feet.

She has to squint when she opens the door, light flooding all her senses at once.

She slides through the hallway in her socks, her arms crossed over herself, feeling weirdly vulnerable in this place that isn’t hers. She gets to the end, where the balcony railing is, and looks over.

She isn’t sure what she expected, but it wasn’t Eren sitting at the kitchen island, his laptop out in front of him, school books strewn over the seats on either side. He hasn’t noticed her yet, and she gets a rare moment to just look at him when he isn’t already looking at her.

It’s another reminder that he is, so unfortunate for her, achingly handsome. The combination of his dark hair, tanned skin, and squared jaw. The breadth of his shoulders, the meat of his arms.

How his blue-green eyes sparkle when he smiles. The tenor of his voice. His height, even more pronounced now that he’s slumped over to look at the computer screen on a surface that’s way too low for him.

Without her permission, her mind goes to what their baby would look like. Whose genes would be more prominent, she wonders. Whose eyes would it have, whose nose? How much of the fetus and its development are determined at conception, and how much of it is affected by how she cares for it during pregnancy. Is this a subject that Eren has already studied before? Could he answer if she asked him?

Instead of allowing that train of thought to continue unraveling, she decides to find her way down the steps, allowing herself to make enough noise that it alerts him of her presence.

He turns up and towards her at the sound of her feet rebounding against the hardwood floors. There’s a quiet second after he sees her where they’re just looking at each other, and there’s a gentle warmth in his eyes that she hasn’t seen before.

“Hey,” she says, pausing in the middle of the staircase. She stretches the ends of her sleeves over her knuckles, feeling suddenly shy.

He smiles and gets to his feet. He starts walking toward her. “Hey yourself.”

They meet in the middle, at the bottom of the stairwell, and there’s a strange moment when she doesn’t know what will happen, whether he’s going in for a kiss or a hug or what he’ll do with his hands.

Mikasa takes in a breath, waiting for it, for anything, but it never comes. Eren’s standing so close to her that it wouldn’t take any effort to reach out and touch him, but he doesn’t initiate. Instead, he leans against the curved edge of the handrails and sticks his hands in his pockets.

She aches with a sense of loss so profound that she has to cross her arms over herself. There was no promise that he would touch her here, but in the span of less than eight hours, he somehow conditioned her to expect it, hope for it even.

“You didn’t wake me up,” she says.

“Sorry,” he responds, smiling at her again. “It’s still early. I thought you probably needed the rest.”

“What time is it?” She has no clue where her phone is or her shoes are.

“It’s just past four. You only slept for like an hour and a half.”

“Oh.” She nods, looking around his downstairs. She leans to the side, looking past him at where he was sitting. “What were you doing while I was asleep?”

He shrugs. “Nothing exciting. I figured I’d try to get some studying done while I waited for you.”

“Am I distracting you from something important?”

“No.” He shakes his head, chuckling slightly. “I don’t really have anything specific to study for. I took the med school entrance exam this summer, and all I have left are some random classes for my degree. It’s just a habit, I guess.”

“Do you usually study on Saturdays?”

“Yeah, usually. I leave from your place, head to the gym, and then I spend most of the day studying unless I have other plans.”

“You didn’t have any other plans today?”

“Nah, not really.” The way he says it is a little too nonchalant to be truthful, but she decides not to press the issue. “Are you still hungry? I asked Lara to leave early for the day, but she made rice porridge and left all the ingredients for toppings.”

She nods, her stomach feeling raw and empty. Eren turns and leads her back to the kitchen.

-

It is probably the best meal she’s had in more than three years. It’s just simple rice stew with a poached egg cracked over it and some other condiments, but whoever Lara is must have raised and fed the chicken herself because the yolk is a deep orange-red and so creamy that it coats her entire tongue.

She tries not to act too impressed, but it’s hard not to show it, especially when Eren has no reaction to it at all.

“Who is Lara? Is she like your private chef?” she asks, before shoveling another big spoonful into her mouth.

Eren smiles, looking down at his own bowl. “Not exactly. She’s kind of like my nanny, I guess. She used to help my mom take care of me when I was a kid, but nowadays she just does whatever we need around the house. She’s a killer chef, though, so yeah, mostly what she does involves cooking.”

Can I live here? she would joke, if she didn’t already know that Eren would take it too seriously. “My mom worked as a live-in helper for a family when I was a kid. She mostly came home on the weekends.”

She waits for his reaction, to see if the information surprises him. Does he understand that he’s the type of person who hires help? And that she’s the type of person who should be the help?

He just nods. “It’s important work. But it must’ve been hard for you.”

“Hm… I guess so. I didn’t really think about it that way when I was younger. My dad is a woodworker, so he stayed home mostly, and I took care of myself however I could.”

Eren hums. “I like hearing about your life,” he says, not looking at her. He seems to be mixing around his porridge just for the sake of it. “I wish I knew more about you.”

“There’s not that much to know. Your life is infinitely more interesting, I’m sure.”

He opens his mouth like he has something to argue, but then he shuts it again and feeds himself a spoonful.

Once they’re finished eating, he rinses out their bowls in the sink and sticks them into the dishwasher. Then, he packs up all the leftovers to fit into the fridge.

She tries to help him, but he tells her to sit, explaining that she’s a guest, and she doesn’t know where anything goes anyway. It makes her uncomfortable to do nothing, but she complies.

“How many more hours will you let me have?” he asks once his hands are washed, and he’s leaning back against the counter again.

It’s sweet, the way he’s still keeping up the charade. “Luckily for you, I’m wide awake after my nap. My bedtime isn’t until 9pm, so you have about three more hours until you never see me again.”

His neutral expression falls. “Don’t joke about that. You’re hurting my feelings.”

The urge to reach out to him nearly overtakes her, to reassure him that there’s nothing to be upset about. She wants to tell him that everything will be alright between them. Except, she isn’t sure that’s the truth. “Sorry,” she says, smiling in the most conciliatory way she can muster. “What do you want to do now?”

-

They leave this time through the front door, and he tells her they’re going for a walk.

“There’s a park near my house that I think you might like,” he says, handing her a large knit zip-up sweater that he pulls out of the downstairs coat closet. He takes a tote bag out as well and slings it over his shoulder.

It’s not exactly cold outside yet, but the sun is halfway down the horizon and orange light spreads out from it like the broken yolk from dinner’s porridge.

Eren points her down a concrete path between his neighbors’ plots of land. The houses in his area are all spread out like patches of wildflower. There is nothing reminiscent of the suburban grid-lock of Shiganshina, the closest populated city to where she lived, where her mom used to commute for work.

The walk to the park itself is already scenic, full of expensive landscaping with tall hedges and what must be centuries-old trees. Mikasa wonders who else lives in this area, who the important families of Eldia are and why.

It takes ten quiet minutes for them to finally come to a clearing where the grass is all one uniform shade of green. There is a shiny, colorful playground with swings and a slide, and off in the distance, she can see a pair of tennis courts walled off by a tall fence.

There is an empty field surrounded by flower beds and trees which Eren leads them to. He pulls out a blanket from the bag he’s holding and lays it down, gesturing for her to sit.

“What made you want to take me to the park?” she asks, sitting so that her legs are stretched out in front of her.

“The sun was going down.” He scoots in next to her, his legs crossed in front of him.

“Is this a nice place to watch the sunset?”

“Uh—yes. But I meant that I wanted you to see as much of the sun today as possible,” he says, staring off into the distance.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but—err, you don’t really seem like you go out during the day that much.”

It’s such a shockingly accurate read of her that she can’t help but laugh, the air in her lungs pushing out through her nose in a huff.

“What exactly makes me seem that way?” she asks, smiling now.

He makes a noise that sounds like “I dunno” and continues, “You’re so pale. And you just seem like you enjoy hiding in the dark.”

“Mm, I guess you’re right. I’ve never thought about it that way before. The daytime is always so loud and full of people. It’s just more peaceful at night.”

“It’s also lonelier,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“Maybe I like it that way.”

“Or maybe you’re just used to it being that way.”

She laughs again, harder this time. She lightly shoves him with her shoulder, and he falls back onto his forearms, laughing along. “Are you trying to date me or roast me right now?”

“I’m trying to date you, of course. And I think it’s working.” She looks over at him, and he’s smiling up at her with such a shit-eating grin. It’s stupid the way it makes her heart pound in her chest.

It is working. It’s working way better than she thought it would, and it freaks her out.

She thought Eren was misguided in his efforts, but she hadn’t considered that he might surprise her, that he might want to give her something she hadn’t previously thought she wanted.

“Can you tell me the worst thing about you? Your childhood trauma or secret porn addiction or something, anything,” she asks.

His smile falters for a second, and he seems to consider it seriously. “Why would you want to know something like that?”

Because if I know the worst thing about you, maybe I’ll stop being so interested, she thinks.

“Isn’t that the kind of thing I should know if I decide to have your baby?”

She’s not wrong, and she’s not lying, but she’s being dishonest. She couldn’t possibly have a baby with him. In what world does any child of hers belong in a place like this? This type of idyllic dreamland is reserved for girls like Historia, the type who have been bred with intention.

Eren might have some nascent interest in her, but what about his parents? What about this society? Mikasa is aware that nothing good in life comes without stipulation.

He nods, sitting back up so that he’s face to face with her.

“Do you really want to know?” he asks her, earnestly, if a bit conflicted. “It’s… not something I’ve told anyone before.”

She nods. The sun is gone now, and the last rays of heat are dying with it. She pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps the sweater around herself.

“My dad…” he says, fidgeting with the blades of grass next to him. He inhales deep into his diaphragm like he’s revving himself up.

“He used to… touch Zeke when he was a kid. I think it started happening after his first wife passed. I guess Zeke looks a lot like his mom or something, I don’t know. But after he met my mom, and they had me, she caught him doing it to me, too. It was going on for a few years already, I think, before she stopped him. Honestly, I don’t really have a clear memory of it.

“After she caught him, she apparently forced him to quit his job. It’s my mom’s family that has… a higher pedigree, I guess? They didn’t need the money from his work at the hospital is what I mean. She thinks he’s possessed or something, with the spirit of his late wife, and that’s why… Well, that’s why they’re always traveling. She’s looking for something to cure him—but, obviously… I guess I shouldn’t say ‘obviously,’ but. I think she’s just trying to make herself feel better. It's why Zeke isn’t around anymore, either.”

He rips out some the grass, crushing the debris in his hands. He looks at her again, his eyes and face look so heavy and small at the same time. She realizes that he’s waiting for her to be disgusted, to run away. 

Mikasa’s heart shatters. “Eren…” She wants to reach out to him again, but she doesn’t know if she should, so she just holds herself tighter. “I—I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—I shouldn’t have asked you to…”

She shakes her head, at a loss for words. This wasn’t what she wanted or expected.

“It’s okay, Mikasa. It really is.” He puts a hand on her knee, squeezing it. “You don’t need to cry for me.”

She touches her face, realizing that it’s wet again for the second time today. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even—Ugh, I’m sorry.”

It feels pathetic to cry when she should be the one comforting him, not the other way around.

“Don’t be. My mom put me through a lot of therapy for it, so I’m fine. I’m pretty well adjusted, all things considered. I probably turned out better than I would have without the therapy, so there’s that.”

She sniffles, watching her tears drip from her jaw onto the denim of her jeans. She’s cried more times in front of Eren the past few weeks than she can remember crying in front of her parents her whole childhood.

Something bubbles in her, a truth that she hasn’t ever told anyone, has rarely even thought about herself, finding its way to the surface, chasing Eren’s confession. She starts speaking before she can think better of it.

“My mom tried to kill herself when she was pregnant with me. Our house is close to a lake, and I guess one day, she just waded in and decided not to come back out. A neighbor of ours found her before she drowned, but I think she had passed out for a little while. Whatever’s wrong with me probably started when she was in that lake. My dad tells me that a lot, as a joke. It’s funny to them now, but I never really saw the humor in it.”

She sniffles, wiping her nose with the end of her sleeve.

“Mikasa…” He squeezes her knee again.

“I was an accident, so I try not to be a burden, you know? If I did have a baby—the baby—I wouldn’t want it to feel that way.”

“You’re not a burden to me, Mikasa,” he says, and she can tell he’s being genuine, but unlike her, he’s honest and wrong.

“You’ve spent exactly one day with me. Not even twenty-four hours. You can’t possibly know how you’ll feel tomorrow or the next day.” Or for nine months. Or eighteen years.

The fact that she’s entertaining the idea at all is shocking.

“I don’t have any evidence to refute what you’re saying because you haven’t given me the chance. But I can prove to you that you’re wrong. Every day, for however long you need me to.”

Eren's looking at her with that same intensely hopeful expression that he had this morning, the one he had on the ferris wheel, and it feels blinding. She doesn't think she can hold everything he wants to give her. She doesn't think it's real, anyway. 

She wants to argue with him, but it’s useless. The sun is set on their day together. She’s ashamed of herself for asking so much from him, for allowing either of them to immerse themselves in this delusion for even a moment.

She stands suddenly, wrapping her arms around herself, less from the cold and more to shield herself from how exposed she feels.

“Can we go now? I’m getting kind of tired.”

-

She collects the penguin plush and her phone from his room, then stands by the doorway awkwardly. She glances at the screen for the time. 7:18pm. “So… I’ll call a rideshare. You don’t need to take me home or anything.”

“Mikasa, what are you doing?” He sits at the end of his bed, looking up at her with such a pained expression that she avoids his gaze. She stares at all the little league baseball trophies and medals on his shelf. Photos of him with his team from his school years, some of them as a teenager, others when he was still cheeky and toothless.

“I just think it’s time for me to leave now,” she says, weakly, like she doesn’t believe it either.

“Is this about what I told you with my dad? Because—“

“No. Not at all, Eren.” She shakes her head. “The day is over. It’s probably for the best if I…”

He stands, tearing the plush from her hands and tossing it onto the floor behind him. He steps to her, his hands hovering above her body, like he’s unsure if he’s allowed to touch her.

“I have another hour left.” There is a tinge of desperation in his voice that she can’t argue with. She looks up at him, so much taller that he towers above her, but right now he seems so small.

She nods. “Okay, one more hour.”

She wraps her arms around his neck, and he leans down, kissing her.

-

He grabs at her, big handfuls of her hip, her ass, her chest. He turns them around and walks her back to his bed without releasing her mouth.

When the back of her knees hit the bed, he pushes her, her back landing on the mattress, and then he’s attacking her neck, her shoulder, his fingers finding their way beneath the bottom of her top, exposing the skin of her abdomen.

“Eren,” she whimpers, as he pulls her shirt over her head, forcing her to raise her arms so it can come all the way off. Her boobs are so swollen that they bounce as she lifts slightly off the bed.

“Fuck,” he groans, staring down at her. His eyes are trained at the cups of her bra, the way she’s spilling out from it. “Move up, baby.”

She clambers up to the top edge, her head hitting the pillows as she slips from her hands.

Eren doesn’t hesitate, just crawls over her and presses his face between her tits, breathing in deeply. Briefly, she considers what she might smell like. She’s been outside, sweating in that long-sleeve top all day, but he makes a sound deep in his chest like there is something pleasurable to be found in her salt-sticky flesh.

He yanks down one side of her bra to expose her nipple and tweaks it so hard that she gasps, the pain traveling down between her legs and making her gush.

He exposes the other nipple too, taking that one into his mouth and sliding it between the incisal edges of his teeth.

She presses her thighs together, panting and writhing beneath him. He moves away from her nipples for a moment and reaches down, hiking her knee up into a ninety degree angle so that he can drive his knee into her center.

She whines, grinding down on him with frantic need. He refocuses on her chest, suction-cupping the swell of her cleavage, seemingly intent on leaving a mark on her.

She reaches down, palming his hard cock through the fabric of his sweatpants, and he thrusts into her hand.

He has to break away from her skin to grunt, breathing hot air over the wet spot he left on her. “Shit, don’t do that,” he says, pinning her hand down with one of his. “I want you too bad.”

“Please, Eren,” she whines, her voice airy and faraway. The pressure in her belly is heavy and twisting, and she needs more of his touch. Needs it right now or she might rip open at the seams.

He must hear it in her voice because he complies, popping open the button of her jeans and rolling them off of her. He presses the pad of his thumb directly onto her clit over her panties, as if his fingers are magnetized to her little nub.

The relief is immediate. She sighs, spreading open her legs wider to give him better access.

He rubs slow circles into her, taking his time to eek out her pleasure. He kisses down from her chest to her belly button, then further, paying special care to the light padding of fat over her uterus.

“I used to dream about this, Mikasa. You in my bed. My baby in your belly. I thought about it every time we fucked, every time before I pulled out of you. You have no idea how badly I want this.”

She can’t respond, can’t say anything at all with the way his fingers keep grazing the sides of her gusset, teasing her, his thumb still moving so achingly slow.

“You don’t know what I would give to see you get big. To be the father of your child. I’ve wanted it so bad for so long it feels like a prerogative from a different lifetime.”

“Eren… please,” she begs, her panties so soaked through they’re starting to become uncomfortable. She can hardly register what he’s saying. All she knows is that her body agrees with it, each word of his making her more pliant beneath him.

In one motion, he pushes the fabric to the side and inserts the entirety of his two longest fingers into her. He curls them up at the same time as he presses his thumb down, and the assault makes her keen, nearly thrashing beneath him. He starts a steady pace of pumping in and out of her, his tongue replacing his thumb in punishing flicks.

She can’t help the sounds she makes, the loss of control over herself. The fact that it’s just his fingers making her feel this way and not even his cock yet isn’t lost on her. She tries to press harder into his face, but he doesn’t let her, the grip he has on her hips is unyielding.

Eren has always made her wait, pushing her past the limits of her patience and her sanity. It feels like his form of repayment for the way she isolates herself from him, trading one form of torment for another.

In the moments before they fuck, while he’s waiting to see how long she’ll be able to hold out for, she wonders what she would do, what she would promise to have him inside of her. It’s dangerous to allow him this access to her, it always has been. Being with him in any capacity is tempting the hand of fate, and now she knows the consequences.

He switches from flicking his tongue to outright sucking on her clit, and she breaks, her whole body contracting with the force of her orgasm. Her hands weave themselves into his hair, holding his face right where she needs him, unable to consider whether he might need any oxygen as she squeezes her thighs around his head.

Eventually, everything in her goes slack again. Her mind is a blank, empty field, the blinding-white pleasure clearing away whatever it was that she had been previously caught up on.

“Fuck. I love it when you look like this,” he says, sitting up to admire his own work. His chin is shiny from her slick, and his eyes are shiny with pride. “So relaxed. So ready for my cock.”

Mikasa twitches at the mention of it, her pussy clenching around nothing.

Finally, Eren rids himself of his shirt and peels down the drawstring of his sweats. His cock springs up, rock solid and veiny against his stomach.

He takes it in his hand and grazes the leaking tip of it over her folds, spreading them, sliding up and down without inserting. “You have the prettiest cunt, did you know that? I kinda hate what I have to do to it.”

He massages the sensitive divots between where her leg meets her hip, and Mikasa jerks up, her pubic bone nudging his cock. It comes so close to her hole that she groans.

They would be here all night if she let him continue admiring her body the way she knows that he likes. It doesn’t make sense to her, how much he enjoys just the act of fondling her and watching her reactions, but she doesn’t care to waste the mental resources on figuring it out.

She has one ace in her repertoire. She discovered it in the beginning, accidentally, when she was joking around with him once and inadvertently triggered something. She knows it’s unfair of her to use right now, all the stakes considered, but she’s aching for him, and his cock is just so red and engorged that it seems more like a kindness at this point.

“Daddy,” her voice comes out in a pitched breath. “Please fuck me? I want it so bad.”

The squelch her body makes is obscene. He’s inside her the moment she says it, stretching her out in what feels like every possible dimension.

“Fuck, Mikasa—Fuck,” he groans, almost angry. “You know what it fucking does to me when you call me that.”

He slams into her, his pace brutal and relentless. Her eyes roll nearly to the back of her skull with how good it feels.

“Daddy, harder,” she moans, egging him on. “You make me feel so good.”

She can tell the moment something switches in him by the way his eyes darken. It’s possible she may have pushed him too far, knowing the pressure he already put himself through today. But the twinge she feels at the base of her spine is all excitement and anticipation.

He hooks his hands beneath her knees, rolling them back until they’re at her shoulders and her hips are tilted up toward him, the position he always uses to finish her off with. He ruts into her, his hipbones against her ass and so deep inside that she thinks the baby must feel it.

She cries out, screaming some mix of his name and daddy over and over again until the tension breaks in her, this time wrecking through her psyche, making her forget who she is without the feeling of him pounding at her cervix.

“Come inside me,” she begs him. “Please, please, come inside me.”

“Shit, Mikasa. Baby. You’re fucking insane.”

He says it so affectionately. The way his hips stutter, his abdomen tensing, how he grips the sheets on either side of her—it’s all so aggressive, violent even. But the way he looks at her the moment before his orgasm forces his eyes closed is soft in a way that she isn’t ready to understand.

-

He’s somehow able to convince her to stay the night while they’re spooning afterward, his arms wrapped around her middle so protectively that she can’t help but feel comforted by it.

He promises her a warm shower and a change of clothes, which is more than she ever offered him when he stayed over. And if she’s being really honest with herself, she just can’t imagine separating from him yet, not after the way he ripped her open, not with his cum dribbling down the inside of her thigh every time she takes a step.

She tries to wash it away beneath the warm spray of his shower head, but it’s near endless, more of it leaking from her every time she rinses it off.

Eventually she gives up, accepting that she’ll have to ruin a pair of Eren’s cotton boxer shorts tonight.

She pulls one of his old t-shirts on and towel dries her hair before stepping back into his bedroom.

He’s still damp from his shower, shirtless and leaning over the corner of the bed to tuck in a fitted sheet.

“You didn’t need to do that for me,” she says, making him turn around.

He shrugs, joy and satisfaction evident in the easy way his shoulders fall, in the lift of his cheeks. “It’s no biggie. I figured it’d be more comfortable for the both of us.”

She helps him finish making the bed, and then they crawl into it from either side, meeting in the middle. When they sleep together at her apartment, they’re usually both butt-naked and still crusted in sex debris, but somehow, freshly bathed and in his pajamas, she feels more vulnerable than she ever has with him.

He leans over to his nightstand to click off the light, and then it’s pitch black in his room, her only guiding sense is the feeling of his body heat next to hers.

He wraps his arms around her, so easily and naturally, then whispers, “Good night, Mikasa,” against the side of her head.

There’s more that they could say to one another, but it’s late now, and she’s exhausted, and she decides she wants this to be how their one day together ends.

“Good night, Eren.”

-

The next morning, she’s gone before he wakes.

She decides to walk the mile to the nearest bus stop rather than call for a ride, letting the cool morning air penetrate some sense into her.

She knew the whole time what she would have to do today, but she felt something crack inside of her as she untangled herself from him this morning, watching the way resistance wrinkled the brow of his boyish, sleeping face.

All the way home, she allows herself to imagine what a life with him would look like, foregoing consideration of where they would live or what they would do for work.

What she sees first is the two of them on a walk, the sun shining on her skin, their laughter floating through the air.

The bus passes by the coffee shop he took her to yesterday, and she can see the two of them sitting inside, Eren distracting her from her work and buying her another coffee to make up for it.

She sees them eating home-cooked meals, the type they learn the recipes for together. She sees him caring for her when she’s sick, listening to what she needs and letting her rest.

She also sees herself, swollen with his baby, and there is happiness there.

But then she gets to her door, unlocks it to step inside, and all those visions fade from the reality of her life.

She spends the morning taking out the over-full trash, washing week old dirty dishes, and folding her wrinkled laundry. She folds his red hoodie, stuffing it away with the penguin plush and photobooth strip in the back of her utility closet. By noon, she gets on her laptop, looks up the nearest abortion clinic, and books the appointment.

-

Most people would just send a text or DM, but for some reason, Eren is kind of old-school.

‘Mikasa… I know I said some pretty overwhelming things yesterday when we were… together, but I need you to know that I meant it when I said I would support whatever you want to do. I just want to be there for you, if you’ll let me. The… the pregnancy, and whatever your decision is, it doesn’t change how I feel about you. Which, is a lot, in case I wasn’t able to make that clear. I—I mean that I like you. More than like you. And I just want to know that you’re okay. So, call me back when you feel up to it. I guess I probably shouldn’t come over this Friday…right? Well, text me if you want me to come over. I’ll be free. I always am for you.’

-

The earliest appointment available was for Wednesday, so Mikasa skips her last class that day to go.

It feels a little unfair that she got sick because she took the morning-after pill, and then she got sick because she was pregnant, and now she’s sick again because of the abortion.

She tells herself to be grateful because at least it was still early enough that all she needed to do was swallow a little white pill rather than undergo surgery.

She spends the next day in bed, reading up on whatever lessons she’s missing by not going to class. She feels very little, other than mild cramping and nausea.

She doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t tell anyone about it. She doesn’t need to.

On Saturday, she drags herself to the Reiss Industries building, apologies written in her mind and ready to grovel for her early leave and absence the past couple of weeks. She gets served an envelope by her manager before any words can even leave her mouth.

At first, she thinks it’s a termination letter, and regret spreads through her like wildfire, spinning every possible disaster scenario of her failed career through her head.

Then, Historia pops out from somewhere behind her with a party popper, jumping up and down and screaming Congratulations! for some reason Mikasa can’t fathom.

“Open it, open it!” Historia commands, smiling from ear to ear.

Mikasa tries first to open it gingerly, peeling the dried glue from the folding, but Historia snatches it from her, ripping it in half, nearly tearing the letter itself.

“Dear Mikasa,” Historia reads aloud, “We’ve recognized your vital contributions to the current pilot project, and,” Historia takes a breath, mumbling the next part, “contingent upon the completion of your undergraduate bachelors of science degree—WE ARE HAPPY TO OFFICIALLY OFFER YOU A POSITION AS A JUNIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER!!!”

She starts jumping up and down again, clapping, and glaring at the manager until he starts to reluctantly clap as well.

Mikasa is suddenly bombarded with a flurry of opposing emotions, unable to process any of it.

“Historia, I… Thank you. I don’t even know how to react.” She shakes her head, trying to clear the fog. “I didn’t even realize that the company was sending out offers this early.”

The manager clears his throat. “Well, usually not. But your work as an intern has been exceptional, and we are anticipating that you will be receiving competing offers in the following months. We hoped to be the first to present you with such an opportunity and that our early recognition would not be forgotten.”

“Oh… Of course. Thank you. Again. I’m shocked,” she responds, trying to say as many words as she can remember.

“Miss Ackerman, we do hope that you’ll give us your thoughtful consideration. Per Miss Reiss’s recommendation, we have extended the expiration period to one month before the end of your school term.” Which is highly unusual, Mikasa fills in the rest for him.

“All the details are in the letter, Miki,” Historia tells her, taking Mikasa’s hands in hers and staring at her with such an excited warmth that Mikasa feels the corners of her mouth twitch upward too.

“Right, well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll give the two of you time to catch up on any uncompleted work from the last week,” he suggests, as subtly as possible for a manager, that her worth here is still tied to being productive before heading down the hallway.

After the manager is gone, Mikasa stares down at the letter for a long time, trying to understand it. The number attached to the salary is higher than Mikasa could have ever dreamed up.

“Miki, aren’t you happy?” Historia frowns, bending over to look at Mikasa’s downturned face.

“I am. Of course, I am. But…” The paper crinkles between her fingers from how hard she’s gripping it.

“But what?”

“Did Eren ask you to offer me a job?”

Historia opens her mouth for a second, like she’s about to refuse, but then shuts it again and seems to think better of whatever she was about to say. “You heard the manager, Mikasa. You’ve contributed a lot to the company. He wouldn’t lie about that.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Historia purses her lips, hesitating. “He… may have mentioned to me that you were interested in working here. But that has nothing to do with why the company hired you! You are so hard working and smart and you’ve basically done the entire—“

“But if he hadn’t mentioned anything to you, I wouldn’t be holding this right now.”

“There were already discussions happening around which interns would be getting an offer this year, and you were a shoe-in, Miki. If not right now, it would have happened in what? Four months? Is there really a difference?”

Yes, there is.

Mikasa tries to smile, tries to remember again to be grateful. “No, I guess not. Thank you again for the opportunity.”

“Oh, Miki, please don’t think—“

“Sorry, Historia. I should get back to work. I do have a lot to catch up on from the last couple weeks.”

-

At the end of the day, after Historia’s already left, Mikasa stays late to finish up the last of her assignments. Then, before heading home, she leaves her resignation letter on the manager’s desk.

Thank you so much for the opportunity… Effective immediately, I will no longer be…

-

That night, Mikasa sits on her couch, staring at Eren’s number on her phone. Her finger hovers over it so many times, but right before she can tap the phone icon, she keeps wondering, What if now’s not a good time? What if he’s busy? What if he answers her call because he thinks he has an obligation to? Or what if she calls and he misses it?

She knows he deserves a call back. Of course, he does. Eren Jeager deserves a lot of things. Good, beautiful, kind, precious, nice things. And people, too.

So instead of calling, she opens their text thread.

She writes and rewrites her message to him so many times that in the end, when she finally sends it, the words don’t even make sense to her anymore. She just wants to be done with it and move on.

I’m not pregnant anymore. I’m sorry. I just don’t think I can be the type of person you deserve right now. I think we should stop seeing each other.

He calls her immediately after the text is delivered, but she silences her phone. An hour later, a long message from him appears, but she can’t bring herself to read it.

She blocks his number and tells herself that it’s better this way.

-

It’s weird at first, to have her Fridays and Saturdays to herself again. It’s quiet and familiar, just like doing errands after the sun goes down.

She doesn’t let herself lament in it for too long. She finds another internship to fill the time, and she takes up more hours at the library. Then she’s back to working and studying on repeat.

Even if there is an ache in her on Friday nights, she’s perfectly capable of getting herself off. She buys a cheap vibrator off the internet and holds it to her clit until her legs shake. And if her mind sometimes has to conjure images of sea-blue eyes and tanned, muscular skin to get her there, then so what? She gets to have secret fantasies just like any other person.

-

Life passes quickly after that. Months go by, and Mikasa ends the term with perfect grades and two more full time offers for after she officially graduates in March.

During winter break, she visits home for the first time in two years.

She turns up at her parents’ door unannounced a few days before the new year. They’re happy, if a bit confused to see her back. They had become accustomed to her long absence and hadn’t prepared anything for her to stay. Mikasa has to climb through a jenga tower of her dad’s extra furniture pieces and stacked piles of her mom’s old clothes to get to her bed to sleep at night. But she doesn’t really mind it. The space is small and comforting in the way that sleeping in your closet as a child feels. And part of her is secretly relieved to be somewhere that isn’t burdened by the memory of him.

In her hometown, her vision of life narrows to the logs burning in the fireplace, her mom’s under-salted cooking, the fraying knit blanket that’s been on their family couch since her childhood.

Her parents ask her about school, and she tells them, leaving out any unnecessary detail. They’re proud of her, of course, but they’re proud of her the same way they were when she brought home B’s on her spelling tests in elementary school. It doesn’t seem to register to them the monumental effort it took for her to get to where she is now, how much she’s needed to sacrifice just to survive in the big city.

They ask her where she’s planning to be after graduation, and she says she’s still thinking about it. One of her offers is in Mitras and the other is for the company’s branch in Shiganshina. All other things considered, the salary, the benefits, are relatively equal. She had previously thought she would stay in Mitras to avoid having to move out of her rent-stable apartment, but… She’s been wondering if something new would be better for her recently.

Her parents tell her they would love to see her more often, and she’s inclined to agree.

Her time in school has proven to be without any of the rooting forces that tend to keep people tied to a certain place. It would be nice to be near people who love her and know her name, if nothing else.

She stays up until midnight on New Year's Eve, and her family watches the capitol parade and fireworks on television. They ask if she ever went to see it in person the years when she spent the holiday in the city. Memories flash through her mind of those sleepless nights, complaining to herself about the noise of the partygoers, wheezing from the heavy smoke pollution that came through the leak in her windowsill. Wondering, always wondering what Eren was doing with his holiday.

No, she says. She never got the chance.

-

She wakes the next morning and puts on her snowboots to go for a walk. The winter air is sharp on her cheeks, and the newly fallen snow from the previous night crinkles beneath her steps.

She walks and walks, all the way down to the park in the little town where everyone usually gathers more than two miles away from home.

Walking is easy. It’s similar to being busy. Repetitive movement keeps her mind occupied, which is almost the same thing as calm.

The path around the field is already cleared and salted, but it’s still early enough that the area is almost entirely empty. She sets on it, one foot in front of the other, watching the huffs of steam from her breath dissipate in front of her.

She listens to the morning birds chirp, whichever ones haven’t migrated elsewhere for the winter. The rustling of the breeze through the trees’ bare branches, high enough in the sky that she has to tilt her chin back to see how they caress one another in their jumbled closeness, each one having spread out to capture as much of the sun as possible during last spring’s growing season.

Whatever light that travels far enough to hit the snow-covered field to her left becomes reflected glitter, untouched and sparkling. She’s glad to catch the sight before the afternoon crowd gathers and turns it all to gray slush.

She makes it almost two laps around before she sees a car pull into the empty lot. A young man exits first, then rounds the front to pull open the passenger door for the woman inside.

The woman steps down from her seat slowly, holding her belly with one hand and braces the man’s outstretched forearm with the other. She’s pregnant, evident even despite the big coat she wears over her long knitted maternity dress.

Both her feet land on the ground, and she looks up at the man. They gaze at one another, having done nothing at all, but smiling and seemingly triumphant.

Mikasa can’t turn away. She’s frozen across the field.

They’re speaking words that Mikasa can’t hear, but she can feel them. The woman laughs, her shoulders shaking, and she throws her face up into the sunlight. The man grabs her hand, leading her away from their car.

Mikasa should go back the way she came. She should do anything other than stand there, watching them come closer and closer towards her, so enraptured by their own conversation that they haven’t noticed this strange woman staring at them.

She can’t get herself to move until they’re so close that she realizes she recognizes their voices, but by the time she turns back to run the opposite way, she’s been spotted.

“Ackerman! Is that you?”

She turns around, feeling like a criminal caught under helicopter search lights.

It’s Franz Kefka, her high school boyfriend. On his arm is Hanna Diament, a girl from the year under them who she took home economics with during senior year.

They smile at her, their faces as bright and radiant as the snow.

“Oh my goodness. Mikasa Ackerman?” Hanna says, wobbling over to her, her arms outstretched, and pulling Mikasa into a hug. Mikasa can feel the other woman’s belly press into her abdomen. “We haven’t seen you in so long!”

“Last we heard, you moved to the capitol city on some fancy scholarship and left the rest of us plebs behind,” Franz teases.

“What in the world are you doing here? And this early in the morning?” Hanna chimes back in, still holding onto Mikasa’s elbows.

Mikasa’s tongue is dry and knotted like wool, but she forces herself to smile back at them. “Just wanted to visit my parents for winter break. It’s my last term before graduation.”

“Oh, wow, look at you. So successful,” Hanna coos. From anyone else, it would sound backhanded or sarcastic, but she somehow manages it with genuine awe.

Mikasa forces herself through nearly ten minutes of a catch-up conversation with them, offering congratulations where it’s due and allowing herself to be impressed by the pretty ring on Hanna’s finger.

She’s eventually able to excuse herself, but not before learning that Franz took up carpentry right after graduating high school, and Hanna is the clerk at the little company where they both work. The rest is history, as they say. They’re in the middle of building a home, but because of some delays, it won’t be completed before the baby is due, which is any day now. They wanted to get some fresh air to start off the new year right.

She tells them to take care and gives her well wishes to the baby.

The instant she’s out of their sight, she feels her stomach churn and thinks she might be sick again. Her legs barely carry her back home, and the moment she’s through the threshold, she falls to her knees on the bathmat in front of the toilet.

She doesn’t vomit, but the world spins around her, pulsing and disorienting, and she has to lean her forehead down on the seat cover to ground herself.

She hears herself wheezing. She wants to cry, but she can’t. Not in this house, not with her parents awake in the kitchen. Suddenly it’s suffocating again, being here in the place where she’s never fit. Where she worked all her life just to leave.

She doesn’t belong here or anywhere. She has nothing and no one, not even herself.

-

She takes the next train back to the city, bidding her parents farewell despite their protests as she leaves out the door with her singular backpack of items from the weekend.

At the transfer station, she’s exhausted. It’s early in the afternoon, and all the bus lines are filled with people heading toward their fun plans with their loved ones on their day off. Mikasa doesn’t want to see them and their smiling faces or hear their conversations and laughter. She doesn’t want any part of this clear, sunny day. She just wants to lay in her own bed in her windowless room and close her eyes. Forever, preferably.

She doesn’t look at the signs. She’s been here so many times that she knows her feet will carry her to the right platform.

She gets on the first bus in front of her and finds the nearest empty seat. She lays her head back and closes her eyes, counting the stops until she can finally rest.

Six bus chimes later, she stands and gets off.

Only, as her feet hit the ground, she realizes she isn’t where she’s supposed to be. The second she turns back around, the bus doors shutter closed, and it takes off down the road.

She’s not in the busy, overcrowded downtown district where her apartment complex is. She’s standing on an empty sidewalk in the suburban outskirts of the city, at the bottom of a hill where each ascending house seems to extend outward wider than the last.

Looking from one end of the street to the other, she tries to orient herself. She’s been here before, she realizes. She just wasn’t expecting to ever go back.

“Mikasa?” She would know his voice anywhere.

She whips around, and there he is, sitting at the bench beneath the bus stop awning.

He looks surprised to see her. He also looks… terrible. His hair is even longer now than it was before, stray strands hanging loosely from the knot at the back of his head, and his jaw is lined in patchy, dark stubble. There are deep gray rings around his crusted eyes. He’s wearing some wrinkled, stained shirt and a pair of sweats that are shredded at the heels.

“Eren?” she asks, because anyone else would probably have a hard time recognizing him.

“What are you doing here?” His voice is gravelly, like it’s being used for the first time in awhile.

“I…” I don’t know, she would answer, if it wouldn’t make her sound absolutely insane. There is nothing in this area for her except for his house, and she definitely shouldn’t have been heading there. So she redirects. “What are you doing here?”

It’s not an entirely obvious question. He has a car. It’s a holiday. What does he need to be riding the bus for? And where could he be going, looking like that?

He grins slightly, in a way that unnerves her with how much sadness there is behind it. He looks at her up and down, like he’s assessing her for something. She has the urge to fix her hair or straighten her top, but she forces herself to stand still. She watches him, watching her, and it feels like they’ve stepped into some strange, alternate reality.

Finally, after several long moments of silence, he says, “I was trying to talk myself out of going to see you. Or into it, maybe. I don’t know,” coughing a bit at the end.

“Oh,” she responds, stunned. “How was that going?”

He grins again, but there is more humor in it this time. “Poorly. I was telling myself that I should have showered if I was going to see you today. But then, I figured you wouldn’t want to see me anyway, so what’s the point? I didn’t even know what you were doing or if you’d be home today. I just really wanted to see you. So I’ve just been sitting here for a while, watching the bus drive by.”

“Do you always take the bus to my place?”

“Well, yeah. You have no parking,” he states like it’s obvious.

“Right,” she nods. She never thought about that. Since she has no car.

They make eye contact again.

“So. What are you doing here?” He shoves his hands into his pockets, and his feet are crossed, outstretched in front of him.

“I…” She cringes to herself. “I took the wrong bus. I know how that sounds, but—”

“I don’t care how it sounds. I’m just…” He exhales, then inhales again, sharply, and his face twists into something that makes her chest crumple.

“I’m really happy to see you, Mikasa," his voice cracks as he stands, traversing the few feet between them to wrap his arms around her, crushing her into his body. "I missed you.”

The relief and safety in his embrace is so immediate and startling, she feels the dam in her fissure and then burst open completely. She sniffles, hiccuping, and then full-on sobbing into his chest, her arms wrapping around his waist to fist at the fabric of his shirt.

“I missed you too, Eren. I’m so sorry.”

He cups the back of her head, pressing a long kiss into her crown. “Please, please don’t ever leave me again. Promise me. I don’t think I can do this again.”

She breathes in his scent, losing herself in the sensation of him all around her. It hits her at once, this carnal desire that she couldn’t understand before. He is what she wants. Eren Jeager. More than anything. She wants to be with him so urgently, so overwhelmingly that it short-circuits any notion she has about whether she deserves it. 

She nuzzles her entire body impossibly closer, wanting to close all the distance she put between them these past three years, trying to make up for all her lost time. “I won’t, Eren. Ever again. I promise.”