SUMMARY / [rivamika/levikasa streetgang!au] It all started with a conversation about chocolate cosmos in the graveyard.
AN / [song - heal, by tom odell] i highly suggest you listen to this as you read, as i listened to it on repeat while i wrote this. characters may be ooc. cover drawn by damselwithaflattire on deviantart and edited by me. please leave a review. thank you to all who read this story.
CREDIT / credits to damselwithaflattire on deviantart for the drawing of levi and mikasa on the cover.
Chocolate cosmos.
They were her mother's favorite flowers.
It was the beginning of the cold month of October that her mother was murdered. She remembered coming home late because she'd had to work overtime to pay for her rent. She recalled being so worried about not being able to make ends meet. Looking back now, she laughed sardonically to herself. She had been so focused on working well past midnight to earn extra cash that she had forgotten that her own mother was home alone, probably waiting up for her. Her mother had never felt safe in that house—especially when they lived in a city like Asteria, the city that was ruled by street gangs and had shitty, corrupt law enforcement services.
She and her mother moved to Asteria three years ago, when she was only sixteen, to get away from her abusive father. For all the time's she's lived here, there have been a total of seventy-six homicides, two suicides, and more thefts than she could keep count of. Despite all of that, she had been so horrendously surprised when she opened the steel door to her apartment, walked upstairs, over to the couch, and found her mother sitting there with red stains blossoming through her white blouse. Her glassy eyes were wide open and they were staring straight at her. And in that moment, she couldn't reach for the phone and dial 911, she couldn't check for signs of a break in, she couldn't do anything but fall to her knees onto the wooden flooring, eyes wide and her vision blurring as tears rushed to them.
When the police arrived thirty minutes later and after they question her and moved her mother's body, she walked downstairs and observed her surroundings. An open window. A soft gust of wind blowing through said window, making the cream colored curtains shift slightly. A broken bottle of premium vodka that she recognized all too well on the plush carpet she laid out when they moved in. A particular shard of the empty glass bottle, smeared with dark red blood, stained said carpet.
And that was all she needed to confirm her suspicions. Her father had done this. Her poor, sad, excuse of a father had traveled two thousand miles across the country to come and murder her mother. The bottle of vodka on the floor had said it all. It was the only brand her father would drink, and he was never seen without one. That was all she needed to make her loathe for the heinous man who she had once looked up to grow into something stronger than she could express.
It was now now the middle of November, and she sat on her knees, the same way she did last month. Only, now, she was sitting in front of her mother's grave with a bouqet of chocolate cosmos in her hands and not sitting in front of her mother's corpse in the apartment she used to reside in.
She pulled her red scarf over lips as a cold gust of wind blew her way, rustling the bouqet. Mikasa inhaled shakily, and just as she was about to lay the bouqet down to rest with her mother, a voice behind her made the woman turn around hastily to come face to face with whoever had snuck up on her.
"Chocolate cosmos," he said, leaning against the black wrought-iron fence behind him as his intimidating steel gray eyes locked onto her onyx ones. "Beautiful flowers." She looked him over. He had short black hair, styled into an undercut, a stoic demeanor, a white t-shirt behind a black leather jacket, black slacks, a white cravat tied around his neck, and black boots. It was already obvious that he was the epitome of trouble.
"They were my mother's favorite," she murmured, turning back around to place the flowers next to her grave before standing up and dusting the dirt off the knees of her black skinny jeans. "Is there something you need?" she asked, none too kindly.
"You know, chocolate cosmos are supposed to mean 'I love you more than anybody can'? Well, something along those lines. But I think that's bullshit, don't you?" He crossed his arms and shrugged, ignoring her question. "Many people believe it's supposed to actually mean something, like.. the end of love." His eyes traveled from her own to her mother's grave. "Seems fitting."
She took a shaky breath and gritted her teeth. Who was he to be intruding on her visit to her mother's grave to strike up a conversation about chocolate cosmos? She turned around and walked briskly away, leaving a very intrigued man standing in the graveyard, staring after her retreating form.
That is the first time Mikasa Ackerman encounters Levi Ackerman. He's on her mind the rest of the walk home, and she's on his the rest of his day.
She found herself standing in front of her childhood friend's home, Eren, whose family had moved to Asteria with her mother and herself. After he turned eighteen two years ago, his parents had decided to move back to where they came from while Eren stayed in Asteria with her. She got her key out from her pocket and opened the door, locking it after she stepped into the three-bedroom apartment. She turned around and entered the kitchen to find Eren slouching lazily on the black leather couch, clicking through the various channels on the flat screen television mounted on the dark red wall in front of him. He had always been more well-off than herself. He had more money than he needed and he had already tried to offer her support through money, but she was always too prideful to accept any of it. She had accepted his offer to let her stay for free at his apartment after her mother's murder, and she hesitantly accepted due to the fact that she couldn't afford another place and she didn't want to live in the old apartment where her mother had gone. There were times when she wondered how he gained that much money, especially since the jobs here in Asteria didn't pay too well, but she never asked about it.
"Hey Mikasa!" Eren greeted her as he turned around and noticed her slipping off her shoes. He turned the television off with a click to the remote and turned around and stood up to face her. "Armin and Sasha invited us to dinner at Green Grove's in fifteen minutes. You feeling up to it?" He asked, giving her a comforting smile. "Because if you're not, I could decline and stay back here with you."
And there it was again. Overly protective and concerned Eren. He had been acting this way— canceling his plans and taking days off work to keep her company, among other things to ensure her safety and comfort— ever since her mother's passing. And although it was sweet, it had been making Mikasa feel guilty for not only taking up his residence and money, but his time as well. But she knew she wasn't supposed to feel this way. He was like her brother; he'd promised to always be there for her.
"Sure. Just let me change out of these clothes," she said, pointing to said clothes that were stained with dirt and soot. She walked into her room after Eren gave her a brisk 'okay' and changed into a white v-neck t-shirt, a black leather jacket, a different pair of black skinny jeans, and her black lace boots. She looked into the mirror as she applied makeup to hide away her pale, gaunt face to see that she looked a little bit like the female version of the strange man she'd encountered earlier in the graveyard. After lining her eyes and painting her lips a dark red color, she stepped out of her room, back downstairs, and opened the door. Eren, who was dressed in a forest green t-shirt, a black jacket hoodie, black slacks, and black sneakers, followed her out the door.
A few minutes later, they stepped out of Eren's car and found themselves outside Green Grove's, the Italian restaurant where her friends were regulars at. They walked in and immediately spotted the table of loud young adults. Armin and Sasha sat across each other on a dark green leather booth, chatting happily amongst themselves. Eren guided her forward and took a seat next to Armin, leaving her to sit next to Sasha, who greeted her with a warm smile.
"How are you holding up, Mikasa?" Sasha asked, and she pursed her lips.
"Well enough," she replied simply, and they dropped the subject when Sasha sensed that Mikasa didn't want to talk about her mother.
They continued to dine and joke around with one another until the wee hours of the night, when the restaurant finally closed and they were the only ones left.
Armin, Sasha, and Eren pulled together some money to pay for the outrageous bill— courtesy of Sasha, of course— and refused to let her pay for her share, which left her feeling pitied upon.
"Don't worry about it, Mikasa," Eren told her. "We all have enough money to be able to do this for you."
"That's not what I was worried about," Mikasa murmured, pulling her scarf over her red lips. She knew fully well that the three of them had more money than they could spend. "Nobody likes to be pitied."
"Mikasa.." Armin started, but his voice trailed off when Eren interrupted him.
"We're not pitying you, Mikasa. We're doing this because you're our family. And this is what family do for each other."
"Really?" she asked, bitterness rising up from within her. "Because I thought that they went out and bought drugs and then partied all night to come home high and drunk, only to abuse others physically and then stabbed each other with a shard of glass from a vodka bottle years after when they left each other." She looked into the bewildered faces of her friends and put her head into her hands. "No, I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.." she apologized, angry at herself for lashing out at the only people she had left who cared about her.
"It's alright, Mikasa," Sasha whispered, looking down at her feet and playing with the hem of her shirt. "You don't have to apologize to us."
She looked up and smiled ruefully at the three people that now mattered the most in her life.
She'd be damned if she ever lost them.
She wakes up early the next morning after a fitful night where she had only been able to sleep for an hour, two at the most. Deciding that she wasn't going to fall back asleep again, she got up from her bed and changed into a sweater, jeans, and boots before tying her scarf around her neck and going downstairs, grabbing the phone and keys Eren got her, and exiting the house to take a walk to clear her head of the nightmares plauging her at night that would leave her trembling and soaked in sweat.
As she turned around and locked the door behind her, images of her father, shard of glass in hand and creeping up on her mother, invaded her mind and she stopped abruptly, leaning her head against the door and holding her head in between her hands. She clenched her eyes shut and waited until the image went away, breathing heavily.
Turning around, she's about to step onto the road when something slams into her with the force of an elephant, and she gasps as she feels herself falling forward, face first into the cold pavement. Thankfully, she rights herself up in time to save her nose from being crushed. She gets up, ready to snap at whoever had been reckless enough to slam into her. When she turns around, she sees the same man she'd encountered at the graveyard the day before, getting up from his knees as well.
"Watch where you're going," she snarls, and she notices his stance. He's bent at the knees, eyes scanning the surroundings, as if he were being chased.
"Fuck," he hisses, turning around hastily and completely ignoring her as he curses more expletives. "Shit, shit, shit."
She turns around to leave, because she has better things to do than to get mixed with what seemed to be a gang member. He didn't have any tattoo or seal upon him that revealed any affiliation with a gang, but she knew it was there, hidden.
"Ackerman!" An unfamiliar masculine voice yells from across the street, and she whips around to see a tall man with short, light ash-brown hair and intense light-brown eyes staring at the man before her before locking onto her and staring a bit too long before moving back to the dark-haired man that bumped into her.
"Damn it, Kirschtein," the man whispered to himself before taking off towards the other man, but not before sending a long glance her way.
That is the second time she encounters Levi Ackerman. And somehow, deep within her, she felt it would not be the last time.
AN / thank you so much for reading. please leave a review; they're greatly appreciated.