Break
The girl was there every single day without fail.
Every lunch time when her break rolled around, Mikasa pulled off the agonising high heels that they forced her to wear at work and pulled on her running shoes. She then jogged the five blocks it took to the park, did a circuit, and then jogged the five blocks back just in time to grab a bite to eat before her break ended.
But six months ago she began to have less time to eat the lunch she packed every morning.
She had first noticed her when she went back to work after the Christmas holidays and had returned to her daily lunch time jog. The girl would sit on the steps leading up to the weird statue consisting of five bodies and an extra arm. She would always have a carrier bag with her from the local supermarket and Mikasa thought that the girl probably stopped by the supermarket to buy the food before she came to the park. The food was always something different, but never bread. Mikasa had looked it up afterwards when she had one day wondered why the girl never threw chunks of bread at the pigeons like everyone else did, and had come across some article about people feeding birds bread which gave them no nutritional value. That had made Mikasa smile – the girl cared enough to give the birds real food.
As Mikasa jogged past the statue she immediately spotted the girl sat on the steps, carrier bag by her side. She reached into it and scattered something that looked like small grain across the ground.
Mikasa slowed her pace, watching pigeons flock around the girl and peck at the food she had thrown. She watched as one bird tried to land on the girl's head, claws getting caught in her hair and messing up her ponytail. It probably hurt her, but the girl was laughing.
When Mikasa realized her pace had slowed too much – almost to a walk – she returned to a quick jog, aiming to complete her circuit in record time like she did every day now, so she could return to the lingering pace around the statue to watch the girl feeding the pigeons.
She sometimes wondered if anyone noticed her. She sometimes wondered if she noticed her. Maybe she thought Mikasa was a creepy woman who stared at her as she slowly jogged by. But in the months that Mikasa had watched the girl throw food for the birds and laugh at their antics, she had grown to doubt that the girl would ever think ill of her.
Mikasa slowed her pace down as she approached the statue again, the girl now reaching out with a cupped hand to let the birds peck the food directly from her palm.
Mikasa smiled, her eyes on the girl and not on her feet, and then she felt her ankle give out underneath her, twisting agonizingly in the wrong direction, all her weight going straight on where it shouldn't and then – snap!
She heard the pigeons startle and take flight as she collapsed to the ground, yelling out as pain shot up her leg.
"Are you alright?!" she heard a girl's voice cry out, footsteps hurriedly coming over to her, and then someone was crouching beside her, a hand touching her arm.
Mikasa looked up from her pulsating ankle and realized it was the girl who had rushed over to her aid. She immediately looked away from those concerned brown eyes.
"Shall I call an ambulance?" the girl asked, her voice full of worry.
Mikasa pushed herself up into a sitting position, hands gingerly holding her ankle as if to contain the pain. "No," she answered. She needed to get back to work. If she was late back, they would fire her. They had been waiting for a chance to do so since she started there, but she was too good at her job for them to find a good reason.
She tried to stand, but her ankle blared a painful protest and she collapsed back to the ground.
"See!" the girl cried at her. "I'm calling an ambulance. You can't possibly go anywhere on that ankle."
"It's fine, really," Mikasa tried to reassure the girl, but she was having none of it. Her phone was already out and pressed to her ear.
When she hung up, she said, "They'll be here shortly."
"You shouldn't have called for one," Mikasa moaned, gritting her teeth as she glared, frustrated, at her broken ankle.
"I definitely should have," the girl replied, a disproving frown creasing her forehead. Then it faded away and the girl smiled. It was a soft, friendly, comforting smile. "I'm Sasha."
"Mikasa," she introduced herself.
The girl's smile grew. "It's nice to finally have a name to a face."
Mikasa's eyes widened, her heart stopping, her pain forgotten for a moment.
Sasha saw the panic on her face and laughed, softly, just like when one of the birds pecked food out of her palm. "I've noticed you for a while now."
"I'm so sorry," Mikasa whispered, praying the ground would swallow her up and take away into the bowels of the earth where people like her belonged.
"Sorry? Why are you apologizing?"
Mikasa forced herself to look up and meet Sasha's eyes. The girl wasn't disgusted or freaked out. She looked concerned for Mikasa's wellbeing, but also happy, relaxed, as if she had been waiting to speak to her all this time and was pleased to finally do so.
"I've noticed you for a while too," Mikasa decided to say, and Sasha's smile grew further, her cheeks reddening with a faint blush that made Mikasa's heart race faster.
Running footsteps approached them and a pair of paramedics stood over them, one crouching down beside Mikasa. "Hello, my name is Bert. You've broken your ankle?"
Mikasa nodded, glancing down at her leg. The paramedic nodded back as he looked at it and gently smiled. "We'll get that sorted out for you."
As the paramedic took care of her broken ankle, she glanced over at Sasha, wondering if she could ask for the girl's number.
But Sasha was one step in front of her. "I'll come in the ambulance with you."
The paramedic looked up at her with a smile. "Are you two friends?"
Mikasa opened her mouth, panic rising in her chest again, but Sasha answered for the both of them. "We are."
Mikasa stared up at her. Friends? But they had only just spoken for the first time. Before now, it had just been Mikasa jogging by at a slow pace to watch the girl feed the birds.
"Right, let's get you up on your feet," Bert said. The other paramedic stepped behind her, putting his hands under her arms and pulling her up off the ground, allowing her to use him as a support as she hopped on her uninjured foot.
"The ambulance isn't very far," the other paramedic told her.
They helped her hop towards it and then into the back of it, Sasha climbing in after her.
"You don't have to come with me," Mikasa reminded her as the ambulance doors slammed shut.
The girl smiled at her, almost timidly. "I've wanted to speak to you for months. I'm not letting you go now."
Mikasa felt her cheeks rush hot red and she heard the other paramedic laugh heartily as he watched her. "Hey, Bert, I think these two are a bit more than friends."
The two girls looked at each other, both their faces a faint blushing red, and neither of them disputed the paramedic's words.
A/N:
A oneshot for tumblr user, just-madman, as part of small collection of mikasasha oneshots under a particular theme of prompts.
I've never written mikasasha before and I never really write Mikasa either, so forgive me for any mistakes in their characters.
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