A/N: SnK doesn't belong to me, etc etc. No beta, so all mistakes are mine.
This is how it starts:
Mikasa is walking along the road, and it's raining, and she doesn't have an umbrella, and fuck if her flats aren't getting clogged up with water and soil and mud. A man walks past her, going in the same direction, neatly sidestepping the puddles of water, and not sparing a glance at her waterlogged figure. She quietly curses at his back, and trudges along with her too-full bag and her too-full arms. She watches him disappear into the distance, neat and calculated, as she tries to brush a soaked lock of hair out of her face.
This is how it starts:
Mikasa is trying on a new pair of sneakers, soft and comfortable, a hundred times better than the pair of flats she'd been forced to throw out after that rainy day. They are a muted yellow, with trailing orange laces, and a steep price tag to match. She's torn. The bell above the shop door rings, and a man steps in, ignoring the staff's offer of help and going straight to a pair of shoes on display. He tells the cashier what size he wants them in, and stands there, silent and still, waiting. Mikasa notes that the shoes he holds are the exact same as the shoes he's wearing—and she recognises his back. She almost slams the shoes on the counter next to him, trying to force him to look at her, wanting to jolt the same recognition in him as she had gotten, and perhaps some guilt as well.
He never glances in her direction, and she goes home with a new pair of shoes, soft, comfortable, and the memory of a man who couldn't care less about her.
This is how it starts:
She catches his eye in the coffee house, and she's buried in a book, her hair held mostly captive by the red scarf thrown loosely around her shoulders. The rest of her black locks fall forward across the face, and she pushes them back rhythmically—once every two pages. It's a thing when the only available seat is the one next to her—he's not sure if it's a good or bad one—and he settles into his emails and croissant, and mostly avoids glancing up at her. He's very good at avoidance, but inevitably, she catches him looking.
She asks him if he remembers her from somewhere, and when he shakes his head no, she growls at him. She actually growls, and he's amused, and she can see it, and she growls again. She gathers up her things and leaves, huffing, and he doesn't see her glance back at him through the window. Admittedly, it's more like a glare.
This is how it starts:
He sees her in his bar, a bar which is more often than not filled with snobbish people with sticks stuck up their asses so high he's impressed their brain can even form a coherent thought at all. It's Erwin's choice location for schmoozing with potential new clients, and Levi only puts up with it because, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the clientele, they serve the best damn drinks he's ever had. He's in his booth, sipping slowly, drained of vulgarities from his last meeting, when he spots her from across the floor. She's sitting at the counter, fingers idly playing over the condensation on her glass, morose and alone. She's wearing a nice, deep purple dress, and heels to match. A necklace, silver on her neck, and tiny studs in her ears. Date clothes, he thinks, as his brain fishes up her prim work suit the first time he'd met her.
Even he knows no one sits alone at the bar counter with that countenance while still waiting for their date, so he goes up to her and pulls her to his booth. Surprisingly, she doesn't put up (much of) a fight, and he settles down opposite her. They don't talk for the rest of the night, but he walks her home anyway.
This is how it goes:
She talks to him, over the phone. A thank you message for delivering her back to her house, and he doesn't know how to respond to that, so he doesn't. The next message comes when she is drunk, and he knows because three messages read, in quick succession, how come you don't remember me? then, i got confessed to right before i got stood up. not by the same guy and finally, will you come over?
He doesn't reply, and he doesn't go over either, but when he sees her in the coffee house the next day, no doubt nursing a hangover and a bout of regret, he has no trouble dropping into the chair across from her. She groans when she sees him, burying her head in her hands, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like please god take me to the hellfire and burning now. Embarrassed, he thinks, and pushes a Tupperware of hash in front of her, and a fork. She mumbles her gratitude, and starts to eat, pushing the food into her mouth almost faster than she can chew. When he asks if they're even for not offering her shelter with his umbrella that day, the fork almost falls to the ground. She's never seen him smile before, but she's pretty damn sure he came close to it when he picks up his bag and wishes her a good day, and leaves the store.
This is how it goes:
She doesn't know his name, but she's nothing if not resourceful, and also a little shameless. She gets his first name off the barista at the counter, and enquires casually after his last at the bar where they spent the evening in slumped silence. His surname, she notes with some surprise, is her surname, too. She writes it down on her notepad, the ink lingering a little too long on the last letter, and it soaks through the paper, a light blue stain going down through all the Fridays of the rest of the year.
She goes back to her childhood friend's place, where her shoes had gotten soaked through and soiled and where Annie had dumped them unceremoniously in the trash without so much as a by-your-leave, and where she had first encountered Levi's back. She trawls through the apartments there; it's in a nice, upscale part of town, and it doesn't take much effort to locate his home. She rings the bell, and after a short pause, he buzzes her up. She holds the cleaned Tupperware box up as an excuse, and she shuffles her feet at the door before he asks her to come in. Gruff, and a little uncertain. She steps over the threshold.
This is how it goes:
They get into fights often. Some are big and some are small, and sometimes she leaves the apartment angry, and sometimes he's the one to storm out. It's a volatile relationship, but they get married in a small ceremony in June three years from when they'd first met, and in at least one of the wedding photos there's a picture of her glaring at him from the corner of her eyes. Of course, there are the pictures of them looking at each other with goo-goo eyes, but those are the pictures everyone steamrolls over to get to the one where she glares at him, or where he pours a bucket of water over her head to symbolise their first meeting. What? he'd asked. It's supposed to be romantic.
This is how it ends:
It doesn't. They take trips together, attend courses together, and eventually adopt two young children from the orphanage, scared, helpless, and clinging on to one another. They make a home, easily expandable, and make conversation with their children's sobbing friends over a plate of cookies and some milk.
And they get old, and she is old, and he is even older, and he passes first, quiet, without much ado. She lets him go without a fuss, and continues taking care of their home when he's gone. Three years on, she goes off in her sleep, and their children sell off the house, keeping only a precious few knick-knacks.
She meets him, a soft shadow near the sun. He holds his hand out to her, and she asks if he's been waiting long. No, not long, he says, with a shrug. They turn, together, and the light envelops them. It's like coming home.